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"he  French  Revolution 


A  SKETCH 


SHAILER  MATHEWS,  A.M. 

Professor  in  the  University  of  Chicago 


DEPARTMENT  OF 


LONGMANS,  GREEN,  AND  CO. 
91  AND  93  FIFTH  AVENUE,  NEW  YORK 

LONDON  AND  BOMBAY 
I90I 


HlSTWTl 


Copyright,  1900 
By  Shailer  Mathews 


All  rights  reserved. 

r-  /(rot/ 


r  *  f 
.        ••        •••        ».••••  •         ♦  < 

Rrst  Edition  (published  at  the 
Chautauqua  Press)  1900.  Second 
Edition,  revised,  January,  1901. 
Third    Edition,    August,    1901. 


PREFACE 

For  the  student  of  society,  the  few  years  that 
elapsed  between  the  assembling  of  the  States  General 
and  the  appearance  of  Napoleon  Bonaparte  afford 
material  altogether  unequaled  for  a  study  in  social 
psychology.  Few  indeed  were  the  political  theories 
and  proposals  for  social  amelioration  that  were  not 
then  tried.  Nor  dares  one  say  that  these  attempts  of 
philosophers  so  desperately  in  earnest  to  bring  in  lib- 
erty and  equality  were  altogether  futile.  Because  of 
the  constructive  genius  of  Napoleon,  they  had  lasting 
and,  in  the  main,  beneficial  results.  But  there  were 
few  of  the  reform  movements  then  inaugurated  that 
were  given  anything  like  normal  conditions  for  trial. 
Revolutions  are  not  the  best  means  by  which  to  bring 
about  permanent  reforms,  any  more  than  fevers  are 
the  best  means  of  bringing  about  improvement  in  one's 
health ;  but  they  are  not  pathological.  No  decaying 
people  has  vitality  enough  to  carry  through  a  revolt 
to  such  constitutional  changes  as  make  it  worthy  the 
name  of  revolution.  In  France,  just  as  in  America 
a  few  years  before,  and  in  England  in  the  preceding 
century,  revolution  was  the  outcome  of  national  conva-' 
lescence,  of  a  socialized  conviction  of  injustice,  and 
of  a  universal  determination  to  install  justice.     It  was 


vi  Preface 

the  expression  of  popular  hatred  with  abuses — political, 
social,  ecclesiastical,  economic — which,  if  properly 
met  and  controlled,  might  have  been  turned  into  the 
more  quiet  ways  of  reform.  Nor  was  it  a  product 
of  Paris  alone.  It  was  the  work  of  a  great  nation, 
provinces  as  well  as  capital,  and  to  appreciate  its 
significance,  the  student  must  never  confuse  tempo- 
rary mob  rule  with  a  national  awakening. 

It  is  this  need  of  studying  the  spirit  of  the  French 
people  quite  as  much  as  their  deeds,  that  has  led  to 
what  may  appear,  in  a  book  of  this  size,  a  somewhat 
disproportionately  extended  treatment  of  the  pre- 
revolutionary  condition  of  France.  But  the  change 
of  temper  which  made  the  Old  Regime  unendurable 
and  compelled  Louis  to  summon  the  State  General, 
was  by  far  the  most  important  element  of  the  Revo- 
lution. One  might  properly  call  it  the  Revolution 
itself,  so  completely  were  the  years  of  violence  under 
the  Convention  the  outcome  of  the  attempt  to  preserve 
advantages  the  Constituent  Assembly  had  gained. 
To  understand  the  conditions  which  were  outgrown 
and  the  origin  and  growth  of  the  revolutionary  spirit, 
seems,  therefore,  quite  as  necessary  as  to  trace  the 
history  of  the  destruction  of  abuse  and  the  struggle 
for  liberty  and  rights. 

While  novelties  in  historical  matter  are  always  to 
be  suspected,  it  cannot  be  denied  that  the  light 
thrown  upon  the  French  Revolution  by  recent  investi- 
gators compels  a  revision  of  some  of  the  judgments 
of  the  past.     Especially  is  this  true  of  leading  revo- 


Preface  vii 

lutionists  like  Danton  and  Robespierre,  and  quite  as 
much  so  of  the  nature  of  the  Terror.  As  the  present 
volume  is  intended  for  the  general  reader,  I  have  not< 
judged  it  necessary  to  give  specific  authorities  for 
some  of  the  restatements  which  have  appeared  neces- 
sary, but  have  contented  myself  with  giving  refer- 
ences to  the  chief  authorities  and  sources  at  im- 
portant points.  In  addition,  general  references  to 
English  historical  literature  have  been  given  for  the 
benefit  of  those  who,  though  not  special  students, 
may  care  to  read  somewhat  widely. 

The  inadequacy  of  any  brief  history  of  the  Revolu- 
tion can  be  felt  by  no  one  more  than  by  its  author, 
and  it  is  almost  unfriendly  to  involve  others  in  one's 
own  shortcomings,  but  I  cannot  refrain  from  ex- 
pressing my  thanks  to  Dr.  J.  W.  Fertig,  of  the  Lewis 
Institute,  Chicago,  and  Dr.  W.  K.  Clement,  who  have 
read  the  proofs  of  the  book,  and  to  Professor  A.  W. 
Small,  of  the  University  of  Chicago,  for  many  helpful 
suggestions.  But  for  them  this  attempt  at  reworking 
college  lectures  would  have  been  even  more  marked 
by  errors  than,  I  fear,  it  is  now.  Thanks  are  also 
due  to  Professor  G.  T.  Little,  of  Bowdoin  College, 
for  the  reproduction  of  the  portrait  of  Mirabeau,  the 
original  of  which  was  discovered  in  Paris  by  James 
Bowdoin,  and  is  now  in  the  art  collection  of  Bowdoin 
College.  My  indebtedness  to  the  works  of  Von  Sybel, 
Aulard,.Sorel,  and  H.  Morse  Stephens  will  appear  on 
every  page.  Shailer  Mathews. 

The  University  of  Chicago,  July  i6,  1900. 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 


PAGE 


Portrait  of  Mirabeau         .  .  .        Frontispiece 

ORIGINAL  IN  THE  ART  COLLECTION  OF  BOWDOIN  COLLEGE 

PART  I 
FRANCE  AT  THE  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  REVOLUTION 

CHAPTER 

I     The  Absolute  Monarchy        .  .  .  .        i 

II     The  Privileged  and  Unprivileged       .  .12 

III     Social  Contrasts  and  Morality     .  .  .      3* 

V    IV    The  Clergy  and  Religion  ...  42 

V     Intellectual    Emancipation   through    Philos- 
ophy      .......       52 

PART  II 
THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  THE  REVOLUTION 

VI     The  Development  of  the  Revolutionary  Spirit 

under  Louis  XV  ....  73 

VII    The    Reform    Movement    under    Turcot    and 

Necker  .  .  .  .  .  .  .91' 

VIII     Bankruptcy    and    the    Convocation    of    the 

States  General  .....  102 

PART  III 

THE  ATTEMPT  AT  CONSTITUTIONAL  MONARCHY 

IX    The  States  General  and  the  Evolution  of  the 

National  Assembly  .  .  .  .     m 

X    The  Uprising  of  the  Masses      .  .  .  135 


X  Table  of  Contents 

XI    The  End  of  the  Old  RAgimb  .  .  .138 

XII    The  Reorganization  of  France           .          .  ^5° 

XIII  The  Progress  of  the  Revolutionary  Spirit  .  166 

XIV  Formgn  War  and  the  End  of  the  Monarchy  182 

PART  IV 

THE  RBPUBUC 

XV    The  Jacobin  Conquest  .          .          .          .          •  207 

XVI    The  Reign  of  Terror  as  a  Political  Experi- 
ment .......  224 

XVII    The  Republic  under  the  Terror   .  .  .234 

XVIII    The  Dictatorship  of  Robespierre       .          .  252 

XIX    The  Return  to  Constitutional  Government  266 

Chronological  Summary 287 

Index 291 


THE  FRENCH    REVOLUTION 


PART  I 


FRANCE    AT    THE    OUTBREAK   OF   THE 
REVOLUTION 


CHAPTER  I 

THE   ABSOLUTE    MONARCHY 

I.  The  Absolute  Monarchy  in  France:  i.  Its  Rise  through  the 
Centralization  of  Feudal  France;  2.  The  Councils,  Parle- 
ments,  and  the  King;  3.  The  Provincial  Administration, 
{a)  the  Provinces,  {d)  the  Intendances,  {c)  the  Intendants. 
II.  The  Extent  of  Centralization.  III.  The  Capital  and 
the  Nation.    IV.  The  Decay  of  Governmental  Efficiency. 

When  Louis  XVI.  came  to  the  throne  of  France, 
May  10,  1774,  it  was  universally  believed  that  the 
clumsy,  conscientious,  stupid  young  man  and  his  beau- 
tiful wife  were  to  introduce  a  period  of  national  pros- 
perity such  as  France  had  not  known  since  the  earlier 
days  of  Louis  XIV.  In  part  these  hopes  were  realized, 
for  the  nation  was  more  prosperous  under  Louis  XVI. 
than  under  Louis  XV,,  or,  indeed,  than  it  had  been 
during  the  last  third  of  the  long  reign  of  Louis  XIV. 
That  they  were  not  more  fully  realized,  and  that 
within  fifteen  years  radical  reform  of  every  sort  was 


\ 


'•i :  :••*:  .•• :  * .  *  * iTJbc/'Ererich  Revolution 

demanded  for  the  very  existence  of  France,  was  due 
to  the  structure  of  French  society  and  the  organization 
of  the  French  state;  perhaps  as  much  as  anything,  to 
the  irresponsible  monarchy  which  the  young  king 
inherited. 

To  understand  the  French  monarchy,  one  needs  to 
begin  one's  study  at  the  time  that  Louis  XL  broke 
the  military  power  of  the  nobles  by  his  defeat  of 
Charles  the  Bold.  From  that  time  the  royal  power 
grew  rapidly.  The  Reformation,  it  is  true,  increased 
the  political  influence  of  the  nobles,  and  for  a  time  it 
looked  as  if  there  might  be  two  states  in  France,  one 
Protestant  and  the  other  Catholic.  But  Henry  IV., 
and  after  him  Richelieu  and  Mazarin,  annihilated  the 
power  of  the  nobility,  and  built  upon  its  ruins  an  abso- 
lute monarchy.  Although  France  remained  broken 
up  into  great  feudal  estates,  their  lords  had  grown  so 
subservient  as  to  have  become  what  Carlyle  con- 
temptuously calls  them,  **gilt  pasteboard  caryatids  of 
the  throne. "  By  the  seventeenth  centurv  France  had 
become  the  one  stronpriy  rpntralj^^.pH — it  would-almost 
be  possible  to  say^  the  on^  mnHprn — «ttf^,^f;  jp  En^'^p** 
It  was,  in  fact,  the  political  marvel  of  the  day.  It 
alone  of  all  the  European  powers  had  emerged  more 
resplendent  from  the  awful  century  and  a  half  succeed- 
ing the  Protestant  movement  in  Germany.  It  was 
not  only  leader  in  thought,  in  art,  in  manners;  it  was 
practically  dictator  in  European  politics.  The  Peace 
of  Westphalia,  which  in  1648  brought  to  a  close  the 
Thirty  Years*  War,  was  to  all  intents  and  purposes 
a  French  document,  announcing  that  Louis  XIV. 
proposed  to  control  the  policy  of  every  continental 


I 


The  Absolute  Monarchy  3 

state.  It  i^  true  such  pretensions  could  not  and  did 
not  long  endure,  and  after  the  victories  of  William  of 
Orange,  the  Duke  of  Marlborough,  and  Prince  Eugene, 
and  even  after  the  revocation  of  the  Edict  of  Nantes 
(1685),  the  Grand  Monarch's  influence  had  waned  in 
international  affairs.  But  so  thoroughly  had  the  work 
of  Richelieu  and  Mazarin  been  done  that  the  mon- 
archy itself  was  no  loser  by  national  misfortune.  It 
even  grew  the  more  absolute,  and  France  the  more 
unified.  And  this  in  the  very  century  in  which  Ger- 
many had  barely  missed  committing  suicide  in  the 
Thirty  Years'  War,  and  England  had  been  rent  in 
twain  by  Roundhead  and  Cavalier!  The  records  of 
the  time  show  clearly  enough  that  the  French  mon- 
archy was  the  envy  of  European  kings.  And  well  it 
might  have  been  in  the  eyes  of  a  ruler  like  Charles 
I.  of  England.  'Tdtat,  c'est  moi— The  state?  'Tis 
I!" — is  the  definition  legend  makes  Louis  XIV.^  give 
of  France,  and  there  is  no  more  symbolical  picture 
than  that  of  the  young  *'Sun  King"  as  with  the  equiv- 
alent of  these  words  on  his  lips  he  walked  into  the 
meeting  of  the  Parlement  of  Paris,  and,  with  riding- 
boots  on  his  feet  and  riding-whip  in  his  hand,  addressed 
the  kneeling  commoners.  The  regency  of  Orleans 
and  the  reign  of  Louis  XV^  though  fatal  to  the  morals 
of  the  court,  none  the  less  increased  the  absolutism  of 
the  king[.  As  all  power  belonged  to  the  monarch,  so 
all  property.  Montesquieu  saw  in  monarchy  a  despot- 
ism limited  only  by  the  sale  of  public  offices.  Black- 
stone,  writing  in  the  eighteenth  century,  classes  France 

'Louis  did  not  use  these  words,  but  made  a  short  speech  to  the  same 
effect.    See  Fournier,  U Esprit  dans  VHistoire. 


iC 


4  The  French  Revolution 

with  Turkey.  The  Sorbonne,  the  great  theological 
court  of  the  nation,  said  that  all  the  property  of  his 
subjects  belonged  to  the  king,  and  that  in  taking 
it  he  took  simply  what  was  his  own.  The  one 
remaining  check  upon  his  action,  the  High  Court  of 
Paris  (Parlement  de  Paris) ^  was  suppressed  during  the 
last  years  of  Louis  XV.,  and  replaced  by  a  most 
unpopular  new  court,  named  after  the  minister  who 
brought  it  into  existence,  the  X^ourt  (Parlement)  of 
Jk^aupeou.  Of  anything  resemhlinpf  a  representative 
legislative  body  for  the  ^"tirr  "^<^ion  th^re^  was  no 
trace  for  the  one  hundred  ^nd  seventy-five_years  pre- 
cedingiySgJ  The  legislative,  like  the  administra- 
tive power^  was  centered  in  the  king.  The  legal 
phrase  summed  up  the  whole  matter,  **As  the  king 
wills,  so  the  law  wills." 

As  far  as  the  machinery  of  this  absolutism  was  con- 
cerned, the  king  might  in  person  care  for  the  affairs 
of  state,  or,  if  like  Louis  XV.  he  was  disinclined  to 
such  exertion,  the  state  was  managed  by  ministers  and 
councils,  while  the  master  of  them  all  enjoyed  him- 
self as  he  saw  fit.^  These  councils  had  legally  the 
right  neither  of  initiation  nor  of  decision,  but  were 
advisory.  The  king,  if  he  chose,  could  decide  all 
matters  without  reference  to  them,  or  dismiss  them 
outright  if  he  preferred.  Yet  in  actual  practice  this 
seldom  happened,  and  practically  all  laws  were  made 

*But  it  should  be  noted  that  provincial  assemblies  continued  to  meet 
and  preserve,  however  imperfectly,  the  thought  of  representation. 

•There  were  five  of  these  councils:  of  State,  Dispatches.  Finance,  Cd|n- 
merce.  and,  less  important,  the  Privy  Council.  Each  of  the  first  four  had 
never  more  than  nine  members,  while  the  Privy  Council  numbered  100-150. 
The  king  was  supposedly  a  member  of  them  all,  but  usually  attended  only 
the  first  three  named. 


The  Absolute  Monarchy  5 

by  them,  although  no  law  was  supposed  to  be  finally 
binding  until  it  had  been  registered  by  the  Parlement 
of    Paris — that    is,   had   been  formally  approved  and 
entered  on  the  records  of  the  state. 
^    The   administrative   division  of  France   was  cum- 
bersome.    There  were,  in  fact,  three  general  strata  of  ^ 
administrative  units.     There  was  first,  the  ecclesiastic, 
which  concerned  the  Roman  Church  alone.     Second, 
there   were  the  provinces.     These  were  the   remains 
of  originaljj  independent  kingckmis  or  duchies  which 
had  been  gradually  united  into  the  nation,  and  by_the__ 
time  of  Louis  XVI.  had  become  merely  military  ^.dis- 
tricts under  governors^  whose  office,  except  in  actual  re- 
volt, had  become  practically  sinecures.     The  provinces 
numbered    thirty-two  (or  thirty-three  if  Corsica    be 
included),  and  were  of  two  classes,  those  of  the  Pays 
d' Election  and  those  of  the  Pays  d'Etat.     The  differ- 
ence between  these  two  classes  of  provinces  was  this: 
the   provinces   known  as  the  Pays  d'  Etat  had   been 
more  recently  conquered  or  acquired  than  those  of 
the  Pays  d' Election,  and  had  preserved  the  privilege 
of   holding   provincial    assemblies.       The    assemblies^ 
were    composed   of  members   of   the   three    estates, 
clergy,   nobles,   commons,   and   enjoyed   the  right  of 
consenting  to  taxation,  and  in  other  ways  preserved 
something  of  self-government.*     The  Pays  d' Election, 
on  the  other  hand,  comprised  the  central  provinces 
of  France,  and  possessed  no  trace  of  that  self-govern- 
ment which,  as  their  name  indicates,  had  been  theirs 

^There  were  seventeen  such  provinces  in  1789,  the  most  important  of 
which  were  Brittany,  Flanders,  Burgundy,  Artois,  Languedoc,  Provence, 
Dauphine. 


6  The  French  Revolution 

until  1614.  It  was  these  provinces  that  especially 
felt  the  effects  of  maladministration. 

A  third  division  of  France  may  be  said  to  have 
dated  from  the  time  of  Richelieu,  and  was  wholly  for 
purposes  of  civil  administration,  especially  for  the 
purpose  of  taxation.  It  consisted  of  thirty-five' 
g^niralith  or  intendances,  at  the  head  of  each  of 
which  was  an  intendant.  They  coincided  approx- 
imately with  the  provinces,  and  were  subdivided  into 
subordinate  districts  bearing  a  variety  of  names.' 

It  was  this  fiscal  division  of  France  that  furnished 
the  points  of  contact  between  the  monarch  and  his 
people.  The  intendant  was  a  member  of  the  Privy 
Council,  and  was  thus,  like  the  Council  itself,  an 
extension  of  the  royal  will.  As  John  Law  said,  these 
intendants  constituted  the  * 'thirty  tyrants"  of  France. 
Thanks  to  the  power  delegated  them  by  the  Council, 
they  were  supreme  in  their  districts,  levying  taxes, 
making  laws,  and  in  case  appeal  was  taken  from  any 
of  their  decisions,  actually  judging  these  appeals. 
Was  rejoicing  in  order?  The  intendant  ordered  bon- 
fires; mourning?  crepe.  Did  a  town  guard  fail  to 
attend  the  Te  Deum?  They  were  forthwith  fined 
twenty  francs  a  man.  If  the  peasant  brought  an  ox 
to  market,  the  inspector  of  cattle  presented  himself; 
the  inspector  of  calves  looked  after  the  calves;  the 
inspector  of  swine  took  care  of  the  pigs,  and  if  it 
happened  to  be  a  sow  with  young,  he  was  joined  by 

'Thirty-one  according  to  the  report  of  Necker  in  1784,  but  for  various 
reasons  he  omits  four. 

•In  the  Pays  (V Election  these  were  generally  known  as  elections  or 
gouvernements :  in  the  Fays  (TEtat,  as  dioceses,  bailliages,  ilections,  etc. 
Do  this  entire  matter,  see  Boiteau,  Eiat  de  la  France  en  1781),  chs.  3,  4. 


The  Absolute  Monarchy  7 

the  inspector  of  sucking  pigs/  The  intendants  them- 
selves mostly  remained  in  Paris  or  Versailles,  and  the 
actual  oversight  of  their  districts  was  in  the  hands  of 
his  sub-delegates.  These  latter  officials  are  described 
in  the  great  protest  presented  by  the  Cour  des  Aides 
to  Louis  XVI.  in  1775/  as  men  without  rank  and 
without  legal  authority,  against  whose  petty  tyranny 
the  inhabitants  of  a  village  dared  not  defend  them- 
selves. It  is  indeed  easy  to  see  how  an  absentee 
official,  even  if  he  had  the  best  intentions,  might  lend 
himself  unwittingly  to  all  the  abuses  attending  too 
great  reliance  upon  a  practically  independent  subor- 
dinate. Yet,  on  the  other  hand,  the  possibility 
for  reform  that  lay  in  the  hands  of  a  conscientious 
resident  intendant  is  to  be  seen  in  the  enormous 
improvemenls  accomplished  by  Turgot  during  the 
twelve  years  of  his  administration  of  Limoges. 
//  So  complete  was  this  centralization  of  power  and 
administration  that  the  government  at  Versailles, 
through  the  councils  and  intendants,  cared  for  mat- 
ters that,  according  to  modern  political  ideas,  might 
much  better  have  been  left  to  local  magistrates  and 
boards.  Indeed,  nothing  within  the  entire  range  of 
life  was  too  great  or  too  small  to  be  overlooked  by 
the  ubiquitous  representative  of  royalty.  We  should 
expect  that  the  taxes  would  be  levied  by  the  Royal 
Council,  and  in  the  light  of  other  facts  it  is  not  supris- 
ing  to  discover  that  there  was  no  national  as  distinct 
from  the  king's  personal  treasury.^     But  even  a  mod- 

*Von  Hoist,  French  Revolution,  I,  14. 

'This  highly  important  document  for  the  study  of  the  Old  Regime  has 
been  published,  with  a  translation,  in  Translations  and  Reprints.  V,  2. 
(University  of  Pennsylvania,  Dept.  of  Hist.) 

'The  proposal  in  1788  to  make  such  a  distinction  was  revolutionary. 


8  The  French  Revolution 

em  Frenchman,  accustomed  to  a  republic  that  is  more 
bureaucratic  than  some  monarchies,  could  not  imagine 
his  government  assuming  such  paternal  functions  as 
the  Bourbon  king.  By  means  of  lettres  de  cachet,  or 
royal  orders  for  arrest,  obtained  easily  by  the  nobil- 
ity, and  which  sometimes  were  even  signed  when 
blank,  he  could  imprison  any  person  without  trial. 
By  them  he  even  could  interfere  in  family  life,  helping 
a  despairing  father  discipline  his  unmanageable  son. 
In  agriculture,  the  Royal  Council  advised  what  crops 
should  be  planted,  seasoning  the  energetic  enforce- 
ment of  their  advice  with  much  good  counsel.  In 
towns  and  parishes  the  central  government  was 
supreme.  "There  was  no  city,  town,  borough,  vil- 
lage, or  hamlet  in  the  kingdom;  there  was  neither 
hospital,  church  fabric,  or  religious  house  which  could 
have  an  independent  will  in  the  management  of  its 
private  affairs,  or  which  could  administer  its  own 
roperty  after  its  own  plans."  ' 
Wits  saw  no  limit  to  this  absolutism.  When  in  1732 
the  government  found  it  advisable  to  close  up  the  St. 
Medard  Cemetery  in  Paris  because  of  the  disorders 
arising  from  the  miracles  alleged  to  have  been 
wrought  at  a  Jansenist's  grave,  the  following  notice 
was  found  one  morning  on  the  closed  gates:  '*By 
order  of  the  king.  God  is  hereby  forbidden  to  work 
r^iraclesJiiiEi&Jilace.  '-^  Just  how  the  ignorant  masses 
thought  of  this  power  we  can  well  imagine.  It  would 
be  impossible  to  convince  them  that  this  all-powerful 
ruler  was  not  answerable  for  their  misfortunes  and 
miseries. 

'De  Tocqueville.  The  Old  Rigime,  64. 


The  Absolute  Monarchy  9 

The  centralization  of  France  in  Paris  was  at  once 
the  explanation  and  the  result  of  this  condition  of 
affairs.'  In  the  eighteenth  century  Paris  was  rapidly 
becoming  Francje.  The  old  nobility,  who  formerly 
had  lived  scattered  throughout  the  provinces,  after 
one  desperate  attempt  to  regain  the  power  Richelieu 
had  wrested  from  them,  had  flocked  to  the  royal  court 
at  Versailles,  there  to  make  their  fortunes.  But  not 
only  the  nobility  sought  the  capital;  trade  more  and 
more  turned  thither.  In  the  sixteenth  century,  for 
instance,  the  provinces  had  many  important  book 
publishers;  in  the  eighteenth  century  they  had  prac- 
tically none;  all  were  in  Paris.  Arthur  Young, 
a  thoroughly  intelligent  Englishman,  traveling  through 
some  of  the  smaller  cities  at  the  outbreak  of  the 
Revolution,  asked  some  of  the  leading  men  what  they 
would  do.  "Oh,"  said  they,  "we  don't  know;  we  are 
only  small  provincial  towns;  we  will  wait  till  we  see 
what  Paris  will  do."  It  is  true  that  the  Revolutioi^ 
was  an  affair  of  the  provincials  quite  as  much  as  of  th^ 
Parisians — perhaps  in  some  ways  even  more  so,  for 
few  of  its  leaders  were  from  the  capital;  but  without 
this  centralization  of  authprity  and  national  life  the 
problem  of  reform  would  ha?^^e  been  far  easier,  and 
one  is  inclined  to  beHeve,  the  desperation  of  theorists 
like  Robespierre  and  the  brutality  of  men  like  Hebert 
would  have  been  short-lived,  if  indeed  possible.  As 
it  was,  although  the  Revolution  was  quite  as  much  the 

•Such  a  statement  is  intended  to  be  only  general.  The  political  relation 
of  Paris  to  France  was  really  threefold:  (i)  It  was  the  capital;  (2)  it  was  one 
of  the  "royal  cities"  {bonnes  villes);  (3)  it  was  a  self-governing  municipality. 
It  was  characteristic  of  the  political  condition  of  France  that  Pans  had 
institutions  appropriate  to  each  of  these  characters.  See  Monin,  VEtat  de 
Paris  en  1789,  29. 


lO  The  French  Revolution 

work  of  the  provinces  as  of  the  capital,  the  control  of 
,Paris  proved  to  be  the  control  of  the  state. 

But  nothwithstanding — or  better,  perhaps,  because 
of  this  elaborate  organization — the  government  of 
France  by  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century  had 
become  thoroughly  inefficient.  The  feudal  survivals 
in  the  provinces,  the  utter  injustice  of  allowing  the 
Pays  d' Etat  elements  of  self-government  not  enjoyed 
by  the  Pays  d' Election^  the  impossibility  of  administer- 
ing municipal  affairs  equitably  or  effectively  from  Ver- 
sailles, all  combined  to  cripple  the  government.  The 
weakness  of  the  administration  was  increased  by  the 
neglect  paid  by  Louis  XV.  to  affairs  of  state.  *'The 
old  machine  will  last  through  my  days,"  he  said,  and 
went  about  his  pleasures.  Evidences  of  the  inability 
of  the  monarchy  to  govern  are  numerous  throughout 
the  quarter-century  preceding  the  Revolution.  It  is 
not  merely  that  the  state  possessed  a  debt  of  hundreds 
of  millions,  that  taxes  were  spent  long  before  they 
were  collected,  that  a  deficit  grew  annually,  that 
legislation  was  imbecile  in  its  treatment  of  the  most 
important  economic  matters.  The  country  was  really 
drifting  to  ruin.  Cynical  old  Louis  XV.  saw  it — or  if 
not  he,  the  Pompadour — and  all  too  truly  prophesied 
that  after  him  would  be  the  deluge.  Chesterfield  and 
Rousseau  saw  it.  Indeed,  the  evidence  was  only  too 
abundant.  There  being  no  popular  representation, 
there  were  no  popular  leaders.  The  very  *'ward- 
^heeler, "  with  his  *^ gang/'  is  to-day,  by  some  strange 
paradox  of  American  politics,  a  guarantee  that  gov- 
ernment by  the  people  shall  not  perish  from  the  earth ; 
but  even  he  was  lacking  in  nnTnarchical  France.  Gov- 
erament  could  not  maintain  order.     The  artisans  had 


The  Absolute  Monarchy  ii 

grown  so  accustomed  to  thinking  of  the  state  as 
a  mere  taxing  organization  that  they  were  suspicious 
even  of  the  call  for  representative  assemblies  in  1787. 
Smugglers  were  innumerable,  despite  fearful  penalties; 
and  under  desperate  leaders  like  Mandrin  in  1754,  or 
Hulin  in  1782,  sometimes  waged  miniature  civil  war. 
"Brigands"  in  bands  ranged  over  the  country,  intim- 
idating, robbing,  even  murdering,  well-to-do  peasants. 
Police  protection  was  insufficient.  In  1764  the  gov- 
ernment made  a  desperate  effort  to  check  the  evil,  and 
fifty  thousand  vagabonds  are  said  to  have  been 
arrested  in  one  year;  but  the  evil  persisted.  An  ordi- 
nance of  1778  provided  that  the  police  should  arrest, 
not  only  beggars  and  vagabonds  whom  they  encoun- 
tered, but  also  those  denounced  as  such  or  as  sus- 
pected persons.  This  law  reads  as  if  it  were  intended 
to  be  the  model  of  that  against  "suspects"  passed 
by  the  Terrorists;  but  it  did  not  accomplish  its  end. 
The  "brigands"  increased,  and  became  an  ever- 
increasing  source  of  terror.  H^f?iMJ>c:Cw 

In  one  word,  the  g^overnment  of  France  was  senile.^ 
From  without,  it  could  only  coerce;  and  brilliant  as 
was  the  court  at  Versailles,  long  before  the  Revolu- 
tion the  monarchy  had  lost  its  ability  to  fulfill  either 
old   or  new   functions.      For   France,    a    magnificent 
nation    of  more    than    twenty-five    millions,  had  out- 
grown absolutism,  and  was  growing  spiritually  ambi- 
tious,   stronger,    and    restless.       The   problem    grew 
more  fatally  simple  with  every  year,   until  at  last  it 
might  be  said  to  have  become  this:  Would  the  govern- 
ment recognize  this  new   France,  and   if  so,  had  the. 
monarchy  sufficient  vitality  to  endure  the.  rejuvena-' 
tion  of  reform?  ^^ 


CHAPTER  II 

THE   PRIVILEGED   AND   THE   UNPRIVILEGED 

I.  The  Classes  of  the  Privileged.  II.  Taxation:  i.  Exemptions; 
2.  The  Case  of  the  Peasants;  3.  The  Indirect  Taxes. 
III.  Sinecures  and  Pensions  for  the  Nobles.  IV.  Feudal 
Privileges:  i.  Feudal  Dues;  2.  Hunting;  3.  Absentee  Lords; 
4.  The  Increase  of  the  Nobility.  V.  The  Third  Estate: 
I.  Classes;  2.  The  Bourgeoisie  as  Compared  with  the 
Peasants;  3.  Rise  of  Bourgeoisie  in  importance;  4.  Hatred 
of  Bourgeoisie  on  the  Part  of  the  Peasants  and  Artisans. 
VI.  The  Army:  i.  The  Militia;  2.  The  Regular  Army: 
{a)  The  Common  Soldier,  {b)  The  Officers,  {c)  The  Army 
as  a  Type  of  the  Nation. 

The  Old  Regime  was  essentially  characterized  by 
-Civil  and  social  inequality.  In  this  it  was  the  outcome 
of  feudalism.  The  centralization  of  all  political  power 
in  the  hands  of  the  king  had  not  been  accompanied 
by  the  abolition  of  privileges  with  roots  running  back 
into  the  earliest  years  of  the  nation's  life.  The  great 
houses  of  the  Second  Estate,  or  nobility,  perpetuated 
rights  that  recalled  the  times  when  their  founders  had 
been  absolute  masters  of  their  villeins'  life  and  limb; 
while  the  new  houses,  like  all  upstarts,  saw  in  their 
lack  oi  antiquity  a  reason  for  insisting  the  more  arro- 
gantly upon  privilege  and  exemption.  As  one  looks 
back  across  the  Revolution  upon  these  social  inequal- 
ities and  hoary  abuses,  it  is  easy  to  see  that  they,  and 
not  monarchy,  were  the  first  objects  of  popular  hatred, 
and  to  appreciate  the  fact  often  to  be  emphasized 
that   the   Revolution  was  fundamentally  social  rather 

12 


The  Privileged  and  the  Unprivileged        13 

than  political.  It^was  not  yrixr^^rUy  :^  r^vnlt^  ^:gainst 
absolutism,  for  to  this  day  the  French  have  had  no 
government  that  in  some  way  has  not  perpetuated 
Bourbon  centralization.  Tjh_was  an  uprising  against 
privilege. 

Speaking  for  the  moment  very  loosely,  under  the 
Old  Regime  Frenchmen  were  divided  into  two  classes, 
those  with  privileges  and  those  without  privileges. 
To  the  former  belonged  the  First  Estate,  or  the  clergy, 
the  Second  Estate,  or  the  nobility,  and  the  wealthy 
commoners.  To  the  class  of  the  unprivileged  belonged 
all  the  rest  of  France. 

Postponing  for  the  present  the  consideration  of  the 
clergy,  we  must  consider  the  nobility.  By  the  end  of 
Louis  XV. 's  reign,  nearly  every  man  who  was  not 
actually  an  artisan,  a  farmer,  a  shopkeeper,  or  a  small 
lawyer  was  a  noble.  They  numbered  perhaps  one 
hundred  thousand  persons,  and  owned  a  fifth  of  the^ 
soil.  The  number  of  those  who  actually  owned 
estates,  however,  was  much  smaller,  but  in  so  far  as 
this  fact  did  not  make  exceptions  necessary,  they  all 
enjoyed  essentially  the  same  privileges.  It  has  been 
estimated  that  there  were  thirty-five  thousand  castles 
or  chateaux  in  France  owned  by  the  nobility.  The 
lower  nobles,  on  the  whole,  contributed  an  element  of 
strength  to  the  nation.  Living  on  their  small 
estates,  they  felt  the  responsibilities  of  their  position, 
and  cared  somewhat  conscientiously  for  their  peas- 
ants. Their  sons  were  likely  to  be  dissipated  in  early 
life,  but  when  heads  of  families  of  their  own,  generally 
reformed.  Their  daughters  were  as  well  educated  as 
conventionality  permitted,  and  either  married  young 


jr 


14  The  French  Revolution 

or  went  into  convents.  One  other  feature  of  the  life 
of  these  small  nobles  was  of  great  influence  upon  the 
national  life.  As  estates  were  divided  among  the 
children,  the  tendency  toward  a  landless  aristocracy 
was  very  strong.  The  result  of  this  was  twofold: 
On  the  one  hand,  many  of  these  poor  nobles  grew  all 
the  more  strenuous  supporters  of  the  privileges  of 
their  caste,  while  on  the  other  hand,  some  of  them, 
like  Mirabeau,  cast  in  their  lot  with  the  commoners, 
and  were  among  the  most  implacable  enemies  of  the 
privileges  to  which  their  fathers  had  clung.  As 
a  class,  however,  the  noblesse  merited  the  words  of 
Chateaubriand:  "Aristocracy  has  three  stages:  first, 
the  age  of  force,  from  which  it  degenerates  into  the 
age  of  privilege,  and  is  finally  extinguished  in  the  age 
of  vanity.** 
7^  /  The  chief  privilege  enjoyed  alike  by  the  nobility, 
the  clergy,  and  the  wealthier  commoners  was  that  of 
exemption  from  taxation.  It  is  true  that  the  clergy, 
perhaps  in  return  for  some  legislation  hostile  to  Prot- 
estantism, perhaps  under  stress  of  war,  perhaps  from 
a  sense  of  duty,  did  occasionally  vote  a  gift  to  the 
state,  but  this  was  in  the  place  of,  not  in  addition  to, 
taxes.  Even  thus  it  steadily  lessened.  Originally 
but  $600,000  a  year,  in  1788  it  shrank  to  $360,000, 
and  in  1789  was  refused  altogether.^  Had  the  church 
really  paid  in  anything  like  a  proportion  to  its  wealth, 
the  annual  levy  would  have  been  vastly  greater.     The 

Mn  this  and  other  estimates  the  livre  is  reckoned  as  a  franc.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  from  1774  to  1789  the  livre  possessed  value  as  silver  of  o  fr.  98 
cent.  But  its  purchasing  power  was  considerably  greater.  In  1830  the  livre 
of  1789  had  the  purchasing  power  of  1  fr.  40  cent,  and  to-day  it  is  considerably 
greater.  If  all  sums  are  multiplied  by  three,  the  probability  is  that  their 
present  purchasing  power  will  be  approximately  discovered.  Ci.  Boiteau, 
U  Etat  de  la  France  en  1781),  417. 


The  Privileged  and  the  Unprivileged       15 

church  raised  $36,600,000  itself  as  tithes,  and  its 
taxable  property  should  certainly  have  yielded  the 
state  an  equal  sum.^  Even  when  the  church  made  its 
gifts,  however,  it  received  a  grant  from  the  royal 
treasury  larger  than  the  gift  it  had  made!  In  1787  it 
received  $300,000  more  than  it  gave.  In  one  province 
$360,000  were  spent  in  the  public  service,  but  the  two 
upper  classes  contributed  nothing  to  it.  In  ten  other 
provinces  $2,000,000  was  paid  by  the  lower  classes  as 
an  income  tax;  the  two  upper  orders  paid  about 
$400,000.  The  princes  of  the  blood  paid  $36,000, 
when  they  should  have  paid  $500,000.  In  fact,  it 
came  to  be  held  that  to  pay  taxes  was  a  disgrace — an 
evidence  of  plebeian,  origin,  and  corruption  of  the 
intendants  and  their  officials  was  open.  Even  when 
the  nobility  paid  taxes,  they  were  clamorous  for  pen- 
sions from  the  court,  and  seldom  were  they  absolutely 
refused. 
^  Over  against  this  scandalous  exemption  place  the 
condition  of  the  peasant.  The  direct  taxes — chief  of 
which  were  the  land  tax  {taille)^  poll  tax  (capitation)^ 
and,  most  hated  of  all,  the  corvee^  or  forced  labor  on 
public  works — amounted  to  fifty-three  per  cent  of  the 
net  produce  of  his  farm ;  and  this  was  in  addition  to 
the  tithes  paid  the  church  and  the  feudal  dues  paid 
his  seigneur,  each  of  which  amounted  to  fourteen  per 
cent  more.  Altogether  the  peasant  paid  thus  eighty- 
one  per  cent  of  his  supposed  income  in  some  form  of 
taxes.  So  Taine,  at  least,  calculates.^  And  even  if, 
as  it  may  very  probably  be,  this  is  an  overstatement, 

^Boiteau,  Etat  de  la  France  en  1781),  214,  says  the  church  paid  to  the 
state  from  1706  to  1789  295,000,000  livres,  when  it  should  have  paid  2,376,000,000. 
*  Ancient  E^^vzs,  4x2. 


3 


i6  The  French  Revolution 

when  made  to  apply  to  France  as  a  whole  rather  than  to 
exceptionally  unfortunate  provinces,  there  can  be  little 
doubt  that  the  taxes  were  a  serious  hindrance  to  agri- 
cultural France.  At  the  best,  they  put  a  premium 
upon  letting  one's  visible  property  go  to  ruin  lest  it 
attract  the  attention  of  the  tax-collector.  Peasants 
actually  requested  their  lord  not  to  repair  their  cot- 
tages, on  the  ground  that  to  replace  thatch  with  tiles 
would  lead  the  sub-delegate  to  increase  their  tax.jii 

Yet  the  amount  of  tax  collected,  from  France  was 
not  so  great  that,  had  it  been  equitably  levied,  it 
should  have  produced  the  least  misery.  Here  the 
utter  inefficiency  of  the  state  is  apparent.  The  taxes 
were  levied  by  the  Council  through  the  intendant, 
who  *'could  exempt,  change,  add,  or  diminish  at 
pleasure.  It  must  be  obvious  that  the  friends, 
acquaintances,  and  dependents  of  the  intendant,  and 
of  all  his  sub-deleguh  and  the  friends  of  these  friends 
to  a  long  chain  of  dependencies,  might  be  favored  in 
taxation  at  the  expense  of  their  miserable  neigh- 
bors." *  The  very  method  of  collecting  taxes  increased 
the  oppression.  Each  parish,  much  against  its  will, 
had  to  collect  its  own  share,  and  its  collectors 
were  held  personally  responsible  for  the  taxes  set 
them  to  collect!  "The  service,"  said  Turgot,  "is 
the  despair  and  almost  always  the  ruin  of  those 
obliged  to  perform  it." 

The  indirect  taxes  were  generally  farmed  out  to 
speculators — the  fermiers  gin/raux — who  made  them 
a  source  of  private  profit.  This  in  itself  would  be 
fatal  to  good  adminstration,  but  such  taxes  were  col- 

*  Arthur  Yoan^,  Travels  in  France  (Bohn  ed.),  314. 


The  Privileged  and  the  Unprivileged       17 

lected  only  with  the  aid  of  atrocious  legislation.,, 
There  was  the  gabelle^  or  salt  tax,  for  instance,  by  farp 
the  most  burdensome.  Every  head  of  a  family  wa^ 
compelled  to  purchase  annually,  and  at  a  price  set  by 
the  government,  seven  pounds  of  salt  for  every  person 
of  his  family  above  seven  years  of  age.  Whether  he 
needed  it  or  not  made  no  difference.  If  he  neglected 
to  purchase  the  salt,  he  was  fined.  Two  sisters  once 
needed  salt  on  Tuesday.  The  government  depot  did 
not  open  until  Saturday.  They  boiled  down  some 
brine — and  paid  a  fine  of  forty-eight  francs,  and  were 
fortunate  to  get  off  with  that!  If  a  man  had  any  salt 
left  over  at  the  end  of  a  year,  and  so  refused  to  pur- 
chase, he  was  fined  as  well.  If  he  smuggled  salt  or 
bought  it  v/here  he  could  buy  it  at  a  lower  price,  he 
was  puaished  terribly.  A  smuggler,  unarmed,  with 
horses  and  carts,  was  fined  three  hundred  francs,  or 
sent  three  years  to  the  galleys.  His  second  offense 
brought  him,  in  one  part  of  France,  a  fine  of  four 
hundred  francs  or  nine  years  in  the  galleys;  in  another 
part,  the  second  offense  sent  him  to  the  galleys  for 
life.  Children  and  women  who  smuggled  salt  were 
fined  for  the  first  offense  one  hundred  francs;  for  the 
second  offense,  three  hundred  francs;  for  the  third 
offense,  they  were  flogged  and  banished  the  kingdom 
for  life.^  And  these  laws  were  enforced.  Calonne, 
one  of  the  last  ministers  of  Louis  XVI.,  declared 
that  the  salt  tax  was  the  cause  every  year  of  "four 
thousand  attachments  on  houses,  thirty-four  hundred 
imprisonments,  five  hundred  condemnations  to  the 
whipping-post,  banishment,  or  galleys." 

'See  full  details  in  Arthur  Young,  Travels  In  France  (Bohn  ed.),  315,  316. 


3Ji 


1 8  The  French  Revolution 

In  addition  there  were  the  octroi,  or  tax  on  food 
brought  into  any  town,  and  the  taxes  on  wine  and  cider, 
as  well  as  on  imports  and  exports,  both  at  the  frontiers 
and  at  the  boundaries  of  different  provinces.  When 
one  further  recalls  that  salt,  grain,  and  other  neces- 
saries of  life  were  in  the  hands  of  great  monopolies 
formed  under  royal  charters,  and  that  in  the  notori- 
ous Facte  de  Famine,  a  grain  "corner"  of  the  most 
conscienceless  sort,  Louis  XV.  was  himself  supposed  to 
have  been  interested,  it  is  no  wonder  that  the  peasants 
should  have  come  to  regard  tax-collectors,  feudal  lords, 
clergy,  and  corporations  as  their  natural  enemies. 

But  while  thus  the  miserably  poor  peasantry  paid 
'and  the  wealthy  classes  were  largely  free  from  taxes, 
the  inequality  was  intensified  by  the  fact  that  sinecures 
with  large  salaries  were  enjoyed  by  those  having 
influence  at  court.  Madame  Lamballe,  for  instance, 
was  given  $30,000  a  year  for  acting  as  superintendent 
of  the  queen's  household.  Persons  were  appointed  to 
offices  the  very  duties  of  which  had  been  forgotten. 
One  young  man  was  given  a  salary  of  $3,600  for  an 
office  whose  sole  duty  consisted  in  his  signing  his 
name  twice  a  year.  In  1780,  after  Louis  XVI.  had 
inaugurated  retrenchment,  the  three  old  maid  aunts 
of  the  king  were  allowed  $120,000  for  food!  In  addi- 
tion the  king  was  constantly  paying  the  debts  of 
nobles.  The  tutors  of  the  king's  children  received 
$23,000  yearly,  and  the  head  chambermaid  of  the 
queen  made  $10,000  off  the  annual  sale  of  partly 
burned  candles.  Altogether,  from  1774  to  1789, 
$16,000,000  had  been  given  to  members  of  the  royal 
family. 


The  Privileged  and  the  Unprivileged       19 

J>-But  it  was  the  privileges  that  sprang  from  feudal 
'rights  that  were  the  most  obnoxious.  It  is  true  that 
peasant  proprietors  were  increasing  in  number,  a  third 
of  France,  according  to  Arthur  Young,  belonging  to 
them  in  1788.^  Even  if  this  estimate  be  too  high, 
the  fact  remains  that  not  all  the  land  was  in  feudal 
tenure.  Yet  these  peasant  farms  were  small  at  the 
best,  and  became  even  smaller  through  division 
among  the  children  of  a  proprietor  at  his  death.^  It 
was  almost  inevitable  that  the  peasant  should  be 
forced  into  the  landless  class.  But  while  thus  the 
poorer  members  of  the  nobility  and  the  peasantry 
alike  were  detached  from  their  land,  one  relationship 
persisted.  ""Wh^gther  or  not  he  had  sold  his  chateau  or 
fields,  the  hoblq  had  still  feudal  rights  within  the  lim- 
its of  what  was  or  had  been  his  ancestral  fief.  In 
fact,  as  the  Due  d'Aiguillon  said  on  the  night  of 
August  4,  1789,  in  many  cases  these  feudal  rights  were 
the  only  property  a  noble  possessed.  He  took  his 
toll  from  the  wine,  the  bridge,  the  mill,  the  fair,  the 
village  scales,  the  oven,  the  wine-press.  For  the 
noble  who  still  owned  the  estate  there  were,  in  addi- 
tion, still  other  sources  of  income.  Every  transfer 
of  the  leasehold  paid  some  fee  to  the  lord.  What  was 
worse,  a  part  of  the  rental  for  some  farms  was  the 
money    equivalent    for   certain    absurd    and    wicked 

^Lavoisier  estimated  that  in  1789  there  were  450,00a  small  proprietors 
living  on  their  estates.  Boiteau,  Etat  de  la  Prance,  17&),  6.  Von  Sybel, 
.French  Revolution,  1,3,  calls  attention  to  the  fact  that  to-day  the  land  of 
France  is  divided  approximately  equally  between  three  classes  of  proprietors, 
the  very  rich,  the  very  poor,  and  the  middle  class.  These  last  are  the  result 
of  the  Revolution. 

'Arthur  Young  speaks  of  estates  containing  ten  roods  with  a  singletree^ 
and  Turgot  said  the  division  was  carried  so  far  that  a  property  just  sufficient 
for  one  family  was  divided  among  six.  Cf.  De  Tocqueville,  VAticien 
Rigime,  60. 


20  The  French  Revolution 

duties  owed  by  peasants  of  feudal  times  to  their  lord. 
In  some  regions  of  France,  for  instance,  a  part  of  the 
duties  of  the  peasant  farmer  had  been  to  beat  the 
marshes  to  keep  the  frogs  quiet  while  the  lady  in 
the  chateau  was  ill,  and  this  duty  had  been  commuted 
into  a  fixed  sum  of  money.  Other  money  payments 
at  the  marriage  of  peasant  girls  were  compensation  for 
ancient  privileges  far  more  atrocious.  Altogether  the 
peasants  paid  fourteen  per  cent  of  their  ipcome  to 
their  seigneurs. 
^  O,  ^Perhaps  as  senseless  and  exasperating  as  any  priv- 
Ti  ilege  of  the  nobility  was  the  exclusive  right  of  hunting 
over  the  farms  of  the  estate.  For  forty-five  miles  about 
Paris,  for  instance,  were  the  royal  capitaineries^  or  game 
preserves,  in  which  all  farms  were  to  be  kept  free  of 
fences  or  other  hindrances  to  the  king's  hunting.' 
The  same  was  true  on  a  smaller  scale  about  each 
feudal  chateau.  The  peasant  could  not  hoe  his  corn 
or  pull  his  weeds  before  a  certain  date  lest  the  young 
rabbits  might  be  disturbed.  At  any  moment  he 
had  to  be  ready  to  see  a  troop  of  gay  cavaliers 
and  ladies  with  horses  and  dogs  sweep  over  his  grain 
in  pursuit  of  some  half-tame  deer.  And  this  was  not 
all.  The  deer  and  the  pigeons  and  all  the  other 
game  could  not  be  killed  by  the  farmer,  even  if  they 
were  destroying  his  crops.  He  could  not  even  build 
fences  to  keep  them  out!  He  must  fasten  logs  to  his 
dog's  collar  to  keep  him  from  running  after  game, 
and  he  might  not  keep  a  gun  to  kill  the  wolves.^    How 

*Auir.  30,  1781.  Louis  XVI,  killed  160  pieces.    In  fourteen  years  he  killed 
more  than  190,000  pieces  of  game  of  all  sorts. 

*Cahieroi  the  Third  Estate  of  Chaumont  in  Champagne. 


The  Privileged  and  the  Unprivileged       21 

universally  hateful  and  oppressive  were  these  rights  of 
hunting  may  be  seen  from  the  fact  that  they  are  men- 
tioned in  nearly  every  bill  of  complaint  sent  to  the 
States  General  in  1789. 

C^  ^  It  should  be  remembered  that  all  these  privileges 
"^enjoyed  by  the  nobles  were  in  return  for  practically 
no  service  on  their  part.  In  the  old  feudal  days  the 
lords  had  felt  some  sense  of  obligation  toward  their 
villeins,  but  while  destroying  the  political  power  of 
the  feudal  nobles,  the  kings  of  France  had  left  them  all 
their  feudal  dues.  It  was  a  fatal  mistake.  Much 
better  had  it  been  for  the  peasantry  if  their  nobles 
had,  like  the  German  nobles,  kept  some  of  their  old 

'  rights  of  government.  For  then  they  would  have 
kept  nearer  the  peasantry ;  they  would  have  lived  more 
at  home;  they  would  have  fulfilled  that  duty  which 
was  the  chief  justification  of  the  feudal  system,  the 
protection  of  the  weak  by  the  strong.  As  it  was,  the 
French  noble  lived  on  his  estate  only  when  forced  so 
to  do  in  the  interest  of  economy.  The  evil  effects 
of  such  absenteeism  were  recognized  by  Frenchmen, 
and  the  nobility  of  Blois,  in  their  cahier  sent  the 
States  General,  justified  their  surrender  of  privileges 
as  tending  to  the  benefit  of  the  small  nobility.  They 
declare  their  belief  "that  a  proprietor  who  fulfills  the 
obligation  of  his  heritage,  spreads  about  him  pros- 
perity and  happiness;  that  the  effort  he  makes  to 
increase  his  revenues  increases  at  the  same  time  the 
mass  of  the  agricultural  products  of  the  realm;  that 
the  country  districts  are  covered  with  chateaux  and 
manors,  formerly  inhabited  by  the  French  nobility, 
but   now   abandoned;    that   a   great   public   interest 


4 


22  The  French  Revolution 

would  be  subserved  by  inducing  proprietors  to  seek 
again,  so  far  as  possible,  their  interests  in  the  coun- 
try." But  this  was  precisely  what  the  nobility  as 
a  class  did  not  desire.  Arthur  Young,  writing  from 
Nantes,  describes  the  country  as  ''deserted;  or  if 
a  gentleman  is  in  it,  you  find  him  in  some  wretched 
hole,  to  save  that  money  which  is  lavished  with  pro- 
fusion in  the  luxuries  of  the  capital."  And  so  to 
Paris  and  Versailles  the  noble  went;  there,  as  far  as 
his  means  or  his  credit  permitted,  to  live  like  every 
other  absentee  landlord,  intrusting  the  management  of 
his  estate  to  an  agent  who  was  held  less  strictly  to 
the  care  of  the  tenants  than  to  supplying  funds  for 
his  master's  life  at  the  capital.  It  was  because  the 
personal  bond  between  lord  and  peasant  was  thus 
broken,  as  well  as  because  of  the  sale  of  estates 
to  an  upstart  nobility,  that  in  the  face  of  the  great 
philosophical  movement  making  for  human  equality 
there  should  have  sprung  up  between  1780  and  1789 
a  distinct  feudal  reaction.  Throughout  France  the 
seigneurs  were  verifying  their  titles  and  their  leases, 
and  were  enforcing  more  vigorously  than  ever  their 
feudal  claims.'  This  fact  throws  light  upon  the  fierce- 
ness with  which  such  rights  were  attacked  by  the 
peasants  in  1789,  as  well  as  the  stubbornness  of  the 
reactionary  members  of  the  Second  Estate  during 
the  period  of  attempted  reform. 

It  would  be  a  mistake  to  think  of  the  order  of  the 
nobility  as  closed.  It  was  being  constantly  recruited 
from  the  wealthy  commoners.  Titles  were  sold  by 
hundreds  and  thousands;  nor  was  the  spirit  of  priv- 

*Cherest,  La  Chute  de  VAncien  Rigime,  I,  49. 


■^) 


The  Privileged  and  the  Unprivileged       23 

ileges  any  more  restricted.  Even  if  a  wealthy  com- 
moner did  not  purchase  a  title,  his  tastes  and  inter- 
ests lay  rather  with  the  privileged  classes  than  with 
the  unprivileged.  So  it  came  about  that  there  were 
many  points  of  similarity  between   the  first  two  and 

e  wealthier  part  of  the  Third  Estate. 
^  f^To  explain  this  Third  Estate,  it  is  not  enough  to 
compare  it  roughly  with  the  Anglo-Saxon  middle 
class.  In  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth  centuries  there 
grew  up  alongside  of  the  feudal  nobles  a  class  of  well- 
to-do  townspeople,  who  as  individuals  owed  no  feudal 
dues,  and  whom  trade  sometimes  made  masters  even 
of  the  nobles  themselves.  As  time  went  by,  this  class 
of  untitled  men  gradually  acquired  some  political 
importance.  The  king,  for  good  and  sufficient  rea- 
sons, recognized  its  right  to  assent  to  being  taxed, 
and  its  representatives  formed  a  third  of  the  great 
national  assembly  known  as  the  States  General,  the 
clergy  and  the  nobility  furnishing  the  two  other  thirds. 
But  by  the  eighteenth  century  thg_  Third  Estate,  or 
commons,  itself  had  begun  to  divi.de_into  cla^sses.' 
They  were  the  bourgeoisie^  the  peasants,  and  the 
artisans.  The  interests  of  these  various  classes  were 
by  no  means  identical.  The  bourgeoisie^  composed 
of  traders,  had  grown  well  to  do,  had  their  properties, 
large  and  small,  and,  unfortunately,  had  at  the  same 
time  become  vulgar  and  selfish.  They  had  even  less 
sympathy  with  the  suffering  peasants  and  artisans 
than  had  the  nobles.  The  !  peasants  were  the  farmers 
of  the  nation.     As  has  already  appeared,  they  some- 

*ReliabIe  figures  place  the  population  of  France  in  1789  between  twenty- 
six  and  twenty-seven  millions.  Of  these,  approximately,  twenty  millions 
lived  in  the  country.    Boiteau,  Etat  de  la  France  en  i^Sq,  11,  12. 


X 


24  The  French  Revolution 

times  owned  their  little  farms  (though  generally  sub- 
ject to  some  outgrown  feudal  dues),  but  more  often 
tilled  a  piece  of  ground  under  feudal  tenure,  and  con- 
trived as  best  they  could  to  save  enough  for  the  ever- 
present  tax-collector  and  to  keep  body  and  soul 
together.  The  artisans  lived  in  cities,  and  consti- 
tuted a  class  whose  rights  were  even  less  clearly  seen 
than  they  are  to-day. 

Clearly  enough,  therefore,  it  would  not  be  correct 
to  think  of  this  untitled  class  as  homogeneous  or  ani- 
mated by  the  same  spirit.  Such  unity  was  impos- 
sible in  anything  except  the  most  general  principles. 
Even  among  townspeople,  the  guild  system  was  the 
source  of  endless  jealousies.  Each  trade  thus  organ- 
ized had  definite  privileges  upon  which  it  insisted. 
We  read  of  bitter  warfare  between  wigmakers  and 
bakers  over  social  precedence!  How  much  greater 
must  have  been  the  lack  of  sympathy  between  the 
peasant  and  the  banker.  Arthur  Young,  traveling 
in  southern  France,  overtook  a  woman  with  bent  form 
and  furrowed  face.  He  thought  her  sixty  or  seventy 
years  old,  but  she  stoutly  maintained  she  was  but 
twenty-eight.  She  was  the  wife  of  a  small  peasant 
proprietor.  They  owned  a  patch  of  ground,  a  cow, 
a  poor  little  horse,  and  seven  children.  Yet  propri- 
etors though  they  were,  they  owed  one  seigneur 
a  yearly  due  of  forty-two  pounds  of  flour  and  three 
chickens;  to  another  one  hundred  and  twenty-six 
pounds  of  oats,  one  chicken,  and  one  sou.  Compare 
with  the  misery  of  this  poor  woman  the  condition  of 
a  successful  member  of  the  bourgeoisie  of  some  pro- 
vincial  town,    who,    after    being   a  manufacturer   or 


The  Privileged  and  the  Unprivileged       25 

a  merchant,  retired  on  his  fortune,  with  very  likely  a 
patent  of  hereditary  nobility;  his  wife,  who  had  prob- 
ably assisted  in  his  rise  by  the  arts  of  a  saleswoman 
and  by  her  talent  for  business,  being  called  Madame, 
like  a  duchess. 

It  is,  indeed,  not  surprising  to  discover  that  there 
was  no  equality  in  privilege  between  the  bourgeoisie 
and  the  other  elements  of  the  Third  Estate.  The 
relations  of  the  two  were  those  of  superiors  and 
inferiors.  The  bourgeoisie  clearly  constituted  an 
untitled  aristocracy,  quite  as  conscious  of  its  social 
position  as  was  the  real  nobility.  Nothing  shows  this 
plainer  than  the  difference  in  the  two  elements  of 
municipal  government,  the  commune  and  the  munici- 
pality. The  commune — never  to  be  confused  with  any- 
thing like  economic  communism — was  the  armed 
association  of  all  the  Third  Estate  ina_town_or_^ilIage^ 
the"7nnniripa1ity  was  the  governing  body  of  the  town, 
and  was  compased  exclusively  of  the  bour^eoisk..  By 
such  an  arrangement  danger  was  shared  by  all  com- 
moners alike,  but  the  perquisites  and  honors  of  nffir.p. 
went  to  the  bourgeoisie  alone.  In  many  if  not  all  parts 
of  Jf'rance  the  bourgeoisie  was  free  from  one  or  more 
forms  of  taxation.  The  very  right  of  labor  was  safe 
only  in  their  hands,  and  they,  quite  as  much  as  the 
aristocracy  of  the  court,  were  ready  to  oppress  the 
masses,  while  the  mayors  of  the  towns  were  notori- 
ously venal,  buying  ofhce  and  being  bought  them- 
selves apparently  with  small  sense  of  official  honesty. 
It  is  to  this  extension  of  class  inequality  and  con- 
sequent class  hatred  that  one  must  look  for  the  origin 
of  that  suspicion  of  the   bourgeoisie  displayed  by  the 


^ 


26  The  French  Revolution 

masses  during  certain  periods  of  the  Revolution. 
That  conservative  spirit  which,  in  the  Constitution  of 
1 791,  set  a  property  qualification  for  suffrage,  was  to 
be  followed  by  a  fierce  determination  on  the  part  of 
the  Jacobin  leaders  to  rid  the  Revolution  of  all  dour- 
geois  control.  Their  brief  success  but  deepened  the 
class  hatred,  and  to  this  day  the  proletariat  of 
France  regards  all  property-holders,  from  the  small 
shopkeeper  to  the  millionaire,  as  hereditary  enemies. 
But  in  1789  the  horrors  of  the  Terror  were 
unforeseen.  The  Third  Estate,  with  all  its  inner 
jealousies,  was  at  one  in  its  appreciation  of  the  injus- 
tice done  it  by  the  Old  Regime.  Quite  as  galling  to 
the  bourgeoisie  as  political  neglect  was  the  social  inferi- 
ority to  which  it  was  relegated  by  fashionable  society. 
Commerce  was  already  working  a  transfer  of  actual 
influence  in  the  state,  and  the  new  rulers  of  commer- 
cial France  very  naturally  demanded  social  and  polit- 
ical recognition.  Although  the  wars  of  Louis  XV. 
had  cost  France  her  Indian  and  North  American 
possessions,  thanks  to  the  Third  Estate  French  trade 
was  steadily  increasing.  The  exports  of  1776  we^ 
309,000,000  francs,  as  over  against  192,000,000  in 
1748.  John  Law,  despite  the  disastrous  collapse  of 
the  '*Mississippi  Bubble,"  had  shown  the  possibilities 
of  paper  money  and  bank  credit,  and  the  bourgeoisie 
had  been  the  chief  beneficiaries.  It  was  possible  for 
a  banker's  clerk  like  Necker  to  become  enormously 
wealthy.  Many  of  the  old  feudal  fiefs,  so  Bouille  says 
in  his  Memoirs,  were  in  the  hands  of  th^  bourgeois  of 
the  cities.  It  was  natural,  therefore,  for  the  class  to 
appreciate  its  own  importance.     Filling  nearly  every 


The  Privileged  and  the  Unprivileged       27 

important  administrative  office  in  the  nation,  outside 
the  sinecures  and  the  very  highest  positions  at  court, 
the  lawyers,  bankers,  physicians,  however  indifferent 
they  might  be  to  the  state  of  the  peasantry,  chafed 
under  the  pretensions  and  privileges  of  the  nobility. 
"What  is  the  Third  Estate?"  asked  Sieyes  in  his 
famous  pamphlet.  "Everything.  What  has  it  been 
until  now?  Nothing.  What  does  it  ask  for?  To 
become  something!" 

In  no  part  of  the  national  life  did  the  distinction 
between  the  privileged  and  unprivileged  classes  more 
strikingly  appear  than  in  tl^  army.  The  military 
forces  of  France  embraced  the  militia,  and  the  regular 
army  consisting  of  one  hundred  and  one  regiments 
of  infantry  and  sixty-two  regiments  of  cavalry.  The 
militia  was  raised  by  conscription  nominally,  from  all 
Frenchmen  between  eighteen  and  forty  years  of  age, 
but  those  exempted  from  the  service  were  very  numer- 
ous, so  that  practically  only  provincials  were  enlisted, 
and  of  these  only  those  peasants  whojyere  desperately 
poor.  Desertion  from  the  militia,  or  even  absence 
without  leave,  was  punished  with  a  life  sentence  to  the 
galleys;  but  not  even  this  severity  could  always  hold 
the  conscripts  to  their  term  of  six  years.  Yet  these 
peasant  troops  were  noted  for  their  valor,  and  together 
with  the  municipal  guards,  were  to  form  the  bulk  of 
those  wonderful  armies  that  the  Revolution  cast  out 
upon  Europe  in  the  name  of  liberty. 

According  to  official  estimates,  in  1787  the  "active 
army,"  on  a  peace  footing,  included  187,483  officers 
and  men,  with  a  total  war  footing,  including  militia, 
of  367,695.     But  these  figures  are  certanly  untrust- 


a8  The  French  Revolution 

worthy,  for  when,  in  July,  1789,  Marshal  de  Broglie 
became  Minister  of  War,  the  "active  army"  amounted 
only  to  163,684  officers  and  men.^  The  regular  army 
was  not  raised  by  conscription,  but  was  composed  of 
men  who  nominally  had  been  enlisted;  but  even 
a  superficial  knowledge  of  European  recruiting  sys- 
tems of  the  eighteenth  century,  with  their  "force 
gangs"  and  their  crimps,  with  their  innumerable 
methods  of  stealing  or  deceiving  men,  arouse  suspi- 
cions as  to  the  voluntary  character  of  the  service. 
Yet  among  the  various  reforms  attempted  by  Louis 
XVI.  was  that  of  this  recruiting  process,  and  it  is 
likely  that  the  private  soldiers  in  the  regular  army 
were  mostly  men  who  had  chosen  the  military  profes- 
sion with  reasonable  freedom.  Their  term  of  service 
was  four  years,  at  the  end  of  which  they  could  reenlist 
for  four  or  eight  years  more. 

^  Recruited  thus  from  desperate  or  worthless  men, 
the  quality  of  the  French  regular  troops  was  inferior 
to  that  of  the  militia;  yet  even  thus,  they  were  hardly 
the  "brigands"  their  officers  called  them.  Rocham- 
beau  even  boasts  that  the  French  troops  in'  America 
iould  camp  in  an  orchard  and  not  steal  an  apple,  but 
if  this  were  really  the  case,  it  must  have  been  due  to 
unusual  conditions.  They  were  not  generally  noted 
/or  such  self-restraint.  The  actual  condition  of  the 
French  soldier  was  one  about  which  different  opinions 
can  easily  be  held.  The  fact  that  men  entered  the 
service  by  enlistment,  and  often,  if  not  generally, 
made  it  the  profession  of  their  lives,  argues  in  its  favor. 
English  observers  speak  with  respect  of  them,  espe- 

'Boiteau,  Etat  de  la  France  en  178c),  261. 


The  Privileged  and  the  Unprivileged       29 

cially  of  their  uniformly  good  appearance — a  uniform- 
ity reached  sometimes  by  such  expedients  as  fierce 
mustaches  stuck  on  youthful  upper  lips,  and  uncom- 
fortably tight  uniforms.  But  on  the  other  side  are 
facts  which  made  military  service  a  very  hotbed  of 
discontent,  and  explain  the  enthusiasm  with  which  the 
rank  and  file  of  the  army  welcomed  the  Revolution. 

Under  the  new  regulations  introduced  by  St.  Ger- 
main, Minister  of  War  from  1775  to  1777,  military 
discipline  was  modeled  upon  that  of  Frederick  II.  of 
Prussia.  Officers  and  privates  alike  were  displeased, 
and  among  the  petitions  contained  in  the  cahiers  of 
1789  are  those  like  that  of  the  Third  Estate  of  Ver- 
sailles, to  the  effect  that  "barbarous  punishments, 
taken  from  the  codes  of  foreign  nations  and  intro- 
duced into  the  new  military  regulations,  be  abolished 
and  replaced  with  regulations  more  in  conformity 
with  the  genius  of  the  nation."  Perhaps  it  was  this 
"genius  of  the  nation"  that  made  flogging  in  the 
ranks  a  cause  of  the  downfall  of  the  reform  ministry 
of  Louis  XVI.  Yet  at  this  time  flogging  was  prac- 
ticed in  the  English  army,  where  the  men  only  laughed 
at  it.  The  food  and  accommodation  for  the  privates 
were  inferior,  but  the  hospital  arrangements  were  not 
altogether  bad.  The  common  soldier's  uniform  was 
generally  in  good  condition,  but  his  comfort  was  not 
a  matter  of  great  concern.  Even  stockings  were 
apparently  wanting,  as  we  learn  from  a  rather  unpleas- 
ant anecdote  of  the  times.  And  to  cap  all,  the 
private's  pay  was  only  six  sous  a  day. 

From  this  condition  there  was  little  chance  of  escape 
through   promotion.     A  private  could    alp\<*s*-  never 


30  The  French  Revolution 

rise  to  the  ranks  of  a  commissioned  officer.  About 
ten  years  before  the  Revolution  it  was  decreed  that 
no  one  should  hold  even  the  rank  of  captain  unless 
his  family  had  been  noble  for  four  generations.  Even 
among  the  nobility,  promotion  went  by  favor,  and 
nobles  without  influence  at  court  often  resigned  in 
disgust.  Yet  this  was  not  due  to  the  small  number 
of  offices,  for  in  1789  there  was  no  less  than  one  gen- 
eral for  every  one  hundred  and  fifty-seven  men.'  But 
in  the  contrast  between  the  private  and  his  officer  the 
injustice  of  the  Old  Regime  is  especially  in  evidence; 
for,  as  Taine  says,  in  place  of  hardship  there  were 
authority,  honors,  money,  leisure,  good  living,  social 
enjoyments,  and  private  theatricals  for  the  officers. 
Of  the  $18,000,000^  paid  the  army,  $9,200,000,  or  more 
than  half,  went  to  the  officers.  There  is  little  wonder 
that  the  ranks  should  have  been  composed  of  "the  scum 
of  society"  and  "the  sweepings  of  the  jails,"  or  that 
there  should  have  been  sixty  thousand  desertions  in 
eight  years;  or  that  the  common  soldiers  should  have 
hated  their  officers ;  or  that  they  should  have  been  among 
the  first  to  welcome  a  revolution.  For  hidden  in  this 
despised  and  abused  soldiery  was  many  a  bright  and 
ambitious  man.  From  the  ranks  or  the  lower  officers 
of  tne  army  of  the  Old  Regime  came  a  Pichegru, 
an  Hoche,  an  Oudinot,  a  Murat,  a  Bernadotte,  a  Soult, 
a  Ney.  To  these  men  the  Revolution,  whether  for 
weal  or  woe,  brought  a  career.  Without  it  they  would 
have  suffered  and  died  members  of  the  despised  canaille? 

'Stephens,  French  Revolution,  I,  371. 

•This  does  not  include  the  amount  paid  the  officials  by  the  military 
bureau. 

=Seean  excellent  chapter  (7)  in  Lowell.  Eve  of  the  French  JRevolution;  and 
especially  Babeau,  Vte  militaire ;  Boiteau,  Etat  de  la  France  en  nSa,  chs. 
10,  II. 


i:.i 


CHAPTER    III 

SOCIAL   CONTRASTS   AND    MORALITY 

I.  The  Court:  i.  General  Character;  2.  Etiquette;  3.  Influence. 
IL  The  Peasantry:  i.  Poverty;  2.  General  Condition. 
III.  Moral  Degeneracy:  i.  In  the  Court;  2.  In  Upper 
Classes;  3.  In  Education  of  Children.  IV.  The  Better 
Side  of  Fashionable  Life:  The  Salons. 


Within  a  society  thus  broken  into  the*  two  great 
classes  of  the  privileged  and  the  unprivileged,  the  cus- 
toms and  habits  of  social  life  formed  a  series  of  striking 
contrasts.  The  king,  of  course,  was  at  the  head  of  the  < 
fashionable  as  well  as  of  the  political  world.  Versailles, 
a  suburb  of  Paris  with  eighty  thousand  inhabitants, 
was  the  city  of  the  court.  There  was  the  magnificent 
palace  that  Louis  XIV.,  at  the  expense  of  thirty  mil- 
lion dollars,  had  built  in  a  swamp,  and  there  the  king 
held  his  court.  ^  Few  of  the  thousands  of  travelers 
who  have  visited  that  vast  pile  have  escaped  the 
temptation  to  repeople  its  wilderness  of  rooms  with 
something  more  than  the  questionable  pictures  which 
now  relate  the  glories  of  France.  But  for  a  modern 
it  is  all  but  impossible.  The  combination  of  vulgarity 
and  display,  of  ceremony  and  indecency;  the  civiliza- 
tion which  would  permit  the  continuous  holiday-life  at 
the  court  and  blinked  at  the  total  disregard  of  ele- 
mentary economic  principles  that  made  such  a  holiday 

^Twenty  thousand  men  were  employed  two  years  in  building  the  water- 
works alone.  Arthur  Young,  in  1787.  however,  declared  that  the  canal  was 
"not  in  such  good  repair  as  a  farmer's  horse-pond." 

31 


'2 


32  The  French  Revolution 

permanent;  the  possibility  of  a  government  in  which 
the  welfare  of  millions  would  be  sacrificed  to  the  whim 
of  a  light  woman  or  the  ambition  of  an  adventurer;  the 
artificiality  of  a  life  whose  first  principle  was  flattery 
and  whose  summit  was  a  sinecure  and  a  pension;  the 
injustice  of  a  system  that,  even  more  than  the  work  of 
the  modern  spoils  system,  made  the  lobby  and  the  con- 
spiracy easy  means  by  which  to  rifle  a  nation's  income, 
while  it  put  a  reformer  at  the  mercy  of  a  court-clique 
or  the  king's  confessor — all  these,  the  inseparable 
elements  of  a  picture  of  life  at  the  court  of  Louis 
XV.  and  Louis  XVL,  are  happily  quite  beyond  the 
power  of  accurate  representation. 

It  must  be  remembered  that  France  had  the  repu- 
tation of  being  the  most  advanced  nation  in  the  world, 
and  its  customs  were  the  model  of  all  fashionable 
society.  But  even  this  consideration  hardly  prepares 
one  for  the  extravagances  of  French  society.  Thirty 
persons  were  required  to  serve  the  king  his  dinner; 
four,  a  glass  of  wine  and  water.  There  was  the  king's 
lever^  in  which  the  highest  nobles  of  the  realm  stood 
about  in  the  decorous  flattery  of  silence  to  watch  the 
king's  toilet,  a  prince  of  the  blood  handing  him  his 
shirt.* 

There  was  sufficient  etiquette  in  the  queen's  toilet 
to  keep  her  waiting  unclothed  until  the  proper  person 
was  given  precedence  in  handing  her  her  garments. 
And  yet  so  paradoxical  was  the  court  life,  that  the 
palace  was  noted  for  its  vile  odors;  and  when  Marie 
Antoinette's   first   child   was   born,  her  room   was   so 

'This  morning  toilet  of  the  king  was  more  or  less  a  purely  conventional 
thing.  Louis  XVI.  would  often  rise  early  in  the  morning,  go  about  his  affairs, 
and  then  go  to  bed  again  to  be  ready  lor  his  lever! 


Social  Contrasts  and  Morality  23 

crowded  with  spectators  of  all  classes  that  it  had  to  be 
partly  cleared  to  prevent  her  fainting!  ^ 

.  As  for  the  number  of  people  in  attendance  upon 
royalty,  even  after  the  economies  of  the  first  years  of 
Louis  XVI.,  the  military  retinue  of  the  king  numbered 
9,050  persons,  including  all  branches  of  the  service 
except  artillerists.  His  civil  household  numbered 
something  like  4,000.  Eighty  persons  were  in  attend- 
ance upon  the  Princess  Elizabeth  when  she  was 
a  month  old.  Marie  Antoinette's  private  stables  in 
1780  had  75  vehicles  and  330  horses.  The  king  had 
1,857  horses,  217  vehicles,  1,458  men  in  liveries.  In 
1786  there  were  150  pages  in  the  palace,  128  musi- 
cians, 75  almoners  and  other  religious  officials,  48 
doctors  and  assistants,  383  officers  of  the  table,  103 
waiters,  198  persons  for  the  personal  domestic  service 
of  the  king.  These  were  all  intended  for  the  palace 
at  Versailles,  but  Louis  XVI.  had  twelve  others 
besides  the  Louvre,  the  Tuileries,  and  Chambord. 
Each  of  these  palaces  had  its  own  army  of  servants. 
This  prodigality  was  by  no  means  limited  to  the 
court.  Especially  in  France,  every  noble  of  any 
importance  must  have  his  little  Versailles,  and  waste 
his  property  and  other  people's  property  in  maintain- 
ing his  state,  while  all  Europe  must  go  bankrupt  try- 
ing to  live  like  the  king  of  the  French — who  was  him- 
self going  bankrupt  most  rapidly  of  all!  ^ 

*In  1787,  Arthur  Young  visited  Versailles,  and  was  shown  the  apartments 
of  the  king.  He  says  that  "it  was  amusing  to  see  the  blackguard  figures 
that  were  walking  uncontrolled  about  the  palace,  and  even  in  his  bed- 
chamber; men  whose  rags  betrayed  them  to  be  in  the  last  stage  ot  poverty.' 

'The  memoirs  of  the  time  abound  in  illustrations  of  this  extravagance. 
As  picturesque  as  any  is  Thi^bault's  (Memoirs,  I,  41)  account  of  the  fashion- 
able crowd  at  Longchamps  and  the  demi-mondaine  carried  off  to  prison  in 
her  carriage  lined  with  mother-of-pearl  and  with  solid  silver  hubs  in  the 
wheels,  and  drawn  by  horses  with  harnesses  ot  silk  and  gold  and  shoes  of 
silver. 


s 


34  The  French  Revolution 

j  Yet  all  this  magnificence,  with  its  vast  unproduc- 
tive expenditure,  was  after  all  no  evidence  of  wide- 
spread comfort.  "What  a  miracle,"  wrote  Arthur 
Young  at  Nantes,  "that  all  this  splendor  and  wealth 
of  the  cities  of  France  should  be  so  unconnected  with 
the  country."  The  nobility,  it  will  be  remembered, 
were  growing  poorer,  and  in  their  places  was  rising 
a  plutocratic  bourgeoisie  whose  hand  was  against  noble 
and  proletarian  alike.  Over  against  the  luxury  of 
Versailles  and  the  comparatively  small  class  of  wealthy 
persons  must  be  placed  the  poverty,  and  even  misery, 
of  the  peasantry  and  the  masses  in  the  cities.  For 
thirty  years  before  the  Revolution  the  official  cor- 
respondence from  practically  all  portions  of  France 
reveals  the  pitiable  condition  of  the  lower  classes,  but 
just  before  its  beginning  bad  harvests  had  made 
misery  acute.  In  1787  Arthur  Young,  from  Calais 
southward,  saw  peasant  women  pulling  weeds  for  their 
cows.  Potatoes  had  just  been  introduced,  but  were 
looked  upon  with  suspicion  by  the  peasants.*  A  pro- 
vincial assembly  of  lower  Normandy  officially  reported 
that  the  artisans  of  its  province  were  barely  able  to 
keep  off  starvation,  and  that  in  five  districts  the 
inhabitants  lived  only  on  buckwheat.  In  other  parts 
of  the  country  the  peasants  ate  only  corn,  a  mixture 
of  flour,  common  seeds,  and  a  little  wheat.  In  Nor- 
mandy oats  were  the  chief  diet  of  the  poor,  and  else- 
where mixtures  of  various  nuts,  coarse  grains,  and 
milk.  In  Poitiers  thousands  of  workingmen  were 
eager  to  work  at  half-wages,  while  from  all  over  the 

»In  order  to  encourage  potato-culture,  Louis  XVI.  at  one  time  wore  a 
potato-blossom  in  his  button-bole. 


Social  Contrasts  and  Morality  25 

most  fertile  regions  of  France  the  officials  reported 
thousands  of  industrious  peasant  farmers  reduced  to 
beggary.  So  narrow  was  the  margin  of  the  peasant's 
capital  that  a  hailstorm  or  an  inundation  would  make 
an  entire  province  dependent  upon  charity.  Nor  was 
the  misery  due  to  mere  loss  of  crops.  Great  stretches 
of  land — one  half  or  one  quarter,  says  Arthur  Young — 
lay  waste.  Agriculture  was  still  mediaeval  in  its 
methods.  We  have  it  on  good  authority  that  there 
were  few  or  no  iron  plows  in  the  entire  country.  As 
a  result,  while  the  English  acre  produced  twenty-eight 
bushels,  the  French  produced  but  eighteen.'  Roads 
were  bad,  regular  coaches  almost  unknown,  transpor- 
tation of  crops  almost  impossible,  and  even  when  pos- 
sible, checked  by  customs  at  the  boundary  of  every 
province.  The  great  majority  of  peasants  possessed 
no  capital,  and  especially  in  southern  France  were 
forced  to  become  metayers,  or  farmers  who  paid  rent 
in  kind,  the  owner  of  the  land  furnishing  all  cattle 
and  machinery.  The  father  of  Mirabeau  declared 
that  "agriculture  as  our  peasants  practice  it  is  veri- 
table drudgery;  they  die  by  thousands  in  childhood, 
and  in  maturity  they  seek  places  everywhere  but 
where  they  should  be." 

The  homes  of  the  peasants  were  no  better  than 
their  food  and  lot.  Arthur  Young,  it  is  true,  speaks 
occasionally  of  well-built  cottages,  but  more  often 
they  were  mere  stables  or  barns,  to  which  a  chimney 
had  been  added,  made  of  four  poles  and  some  mud. 
And   as  for  the  peasants  themselves,  Arthur  Young 

^It  has  been  estimated  that  while  in  the  matter  of  taxes  the  French 
farmer  stood  to  the  English  as  3K  to  2%,  in  the  matter  of  produce  his  land 
was  in  the  ratio  only  of  9  to  14. 


^6  The  French  Revolution 

finds  men  and  women  everywhere  working  barefooted, 
and  declares  the  Souillac  women  to  be  "walking 
dunghills. "  The  elder  Mirabeau,  who  saw  a  company 
of  peasants  at  a  festival,  describes  them  as  "frightful 
looking  men,  or  rather  wild  beasts,  covered  with  coats 
of  coarse  wool,  wearing  wide  leather  belts  pierced  with 
copper  nails,  ....  their  faces  haggard  and  covered 
with  long  matted  hair,  the  upper  portion  pallid,  and 
the  lower  distended,  indicative  of  cruel  delight  and 
a  sort  of  ferocious  impatience." 

b  The  condition  of  the  artisans  of  cities  was  perhaps 
less  rigorous  than  that  of  the  peasants,  but  it  was 
bound  to  result  in  misery.  Wages  were  low,  the  cost 
of  bread  was  high,  and  far  more  than  in  these  days  of 
compulsory  education,  the  surroundings  of  the  poor 
were  practically  fixed  for  life.  In  the  place  of  educa- 
tion was  endless  talk.  Philosophical  dreams,  which 
in  some  crude  shape  were  soon  shared  by  the  lowest 
classes,  added  new  zest  to  discontent,  while  the 
uncertainty  and  severity  of  their  life  were  rapidly 
breeding  among  the  poor  an  incomparable  brutality. 
Yet  we  must  here  discriminate.  "The  French  peasant 
was  far  freer  socially  than  the  serfs  of  Germany,  Italy, 
and  Spain;  and  in  Prussia,  where  the  burdens  of 
a  vigorous  and  aggressive  monarchy  were  added  to 
those  of  feudalism,  the  peasants  had  to  bear  heavier 
loads  even  than  those  of  Central  France. "  '  Travelers 
of  the  time,  also,  make  it  evident  that  the  condition 
of  the  peasants  varied  greatly  in  different  parts  of  the 
country,  and  in  portions  of  France,  especially  in  the 
north,   they  seem   to   have   enjoyed  some   real  pros- 

>Rose,  Revolutionary  and  Napoleonic  Era,  19, 


Sff. 


Social  Contrasts  and  Morality  37 

perity.  But  as  one  might  well  have  conjectured, 
wherever  the  masses  had  come  under  the  influence  of 
the  new  thought,  this  very  prosperity  bred  a  more 
mutinous  discontent.  At  the  best,  if  they  were  more 
comfortable,  they  were  the  more  certain  victims  of  the 
sub-delegate  of  the  intendant  and  the  local  tax-col- 
lector. The  contrast  between  privileged  and  unpriv- 
ileged was  made  all  the  more  galling  as  men  began 
on  the  one  hand  to  believe  passionately  in  the  equality 
of  "the  natural  man"  preached  by  the  philosophers, 
and  on  the  other  to  taste  the  pleasure  of  owning  even 
the   smallest  patch   of   ground   and  a  few  pieces  of 

tt  is  to  be  expected  that  a  national  sense  so  blunted 
as  to  admit  of  such  contrasts  as  these  should  also 
have  retained  little  susceptibility  to  morality  in  other 
relations.  It  is  true  that  pictures  of  national  im- 
morality are  likely  to  be  overcolored ;  witness  current 
descriptions  of  life  under  the  Caesars  and  during  the 
English  Restoration.  Fortunately,  the  vices  and  gen- 
eral reversion  to  animalism  which  characterize  society 
which  wealth  has  made  parasitic  are  not  to  be  found 
among  the  people  as  a  whole.  None  the  less,  gladi- 
atorial games  are  most  damning  testimony  against 
the  moral  ideal  of  the  Roman  Empire,  no  matter  how 
far  Petronius  may  stand  corrected  by  the  gravestones 
of  forgotten  thousands.  In  the  same  way,  the  low 
moral  condition  of  France  may  be  seen  with  some 
accuracy  in  a  literature  much  of  which  would  hardly 
be  allowed  to  pass  through  our  mails,  but  which  was 
praised  by  a  woman  like  Madame  Roland. 

Most  of  all,  however,  may  it  be  judged  by  the  gen- 


38  The  French  Revolution 

eral  habits  of  fashionable  and  unfashionable  folk  of 
the  time.  As  one  might  expect,  the  saddest  spectacle 
of  demoralization  is  to  be  seen  in  the  court  circle. 
Before  the  accession  of  Louis  XVI.  the  social  life,  and 
often  the  state  policy,  of  Versailles  had  been  under 
the  control  of  the  mistresses  of  the  king,  the  most 
celebrated  being  Madame  de  Pompadour  and  Madame 
du  Barry,  the  last  of  whom  was  to  perish  miserably  on 
the  guillotine.  Indeed,  the  regency  of  the  Duke  of 
Orleans  and  the  reign  »of  Louis  XV.  have  become 
synonymous  for  all  that  is  shameless.  But  with  Louis 
XVI.  matters  were  much  improved.  Louis  was  a  young 
man  of  blameless  life  so  far  as  conventional  morality 
is  concerned,  and  endeavored  to  purify  his  court.  The 
effort  was  successful  to  some  extent,  but  was  really 
hopeless.  The  court  nobility  were  without  serious- 
ness, and  love  affairs  figured  too  largely  in  life  to  be 
abandoned.  It  is  not  necessary  to  plunge  into  the 
unclean  stream  of  memoirs  of  the  time,  for  it  is  alto- 
gether probable  that  half  the  stories  they  relate  are 
nothing  more  than  lies  born  of  a  prurient  love  of  gos- 
sip. But  \he  mere  fact  that  about  the  queen,  Marie 
Antoinette,  there  should  so  continually  gather  scan- 
dalous rumors,  however  little  one  may  believe  the 
worst  of  them,'  is  in  itself  sufficient  evidence  of  wide- 
spread laxity  in  morals.  The  very  imprudences  of 
the  queen,  her  choice  of  friends,  and  especially  of  four 
men  as  nurses  when  ill;  the  mere  possibility  of  a  scan- 
dalous affair  like  that  of  the  Diamond  Necklace,  in 
which  a  cardinal  of  the  church  appeared  to  fancy  it 
possible  to  win  her  favors  by  the  present  of  jewels — all 

»Thi6bault,  Memoirs,  I,  43. 


Social  Contrasts  and  Morality  39 

these  things  throw  a  singularly  unpleasant  light  upon 
the  court. 

A  similar  license  in  manners,  to  use  no  stronger 
term,  ran  through  all  society.  Husband  and  wife  too 
frequently  lived  in  only  formal  union,  and  marital 
unfaithfulness  among  the  fashionable  classes  was 
shockingly  palliated,  even  expected.  Gouverneur 
Morris  tells  of  ladies  receiving  him  at  their  toilet; 
others  tell  of  being  received  while  their  hostesses  were 
in  their  bath  of  water  made  ^untransparent  with  milk. 
There  was  hardly  a  philosopher  who  lived  a  chaste  life, 
and  many  of  them  were  notoriously  licentious.  The 
father  of  Mirabeau  only  followed  a  tolerably  wide- 
spread fashion  when  he  brought  his  mistress  into  the 
midst  of  his  family.  But  perhaps  the  most  significant 
story — and  with  it  we  leave  this  unpleasant  matter — 
concerns  Voltaire.  He  had  lived  for  years  as  the 
recognized  lover  of  a  most  learned  Madame  du 
Chatelet.  At  her  death  he  and  her  husband  opened 
a  locket  the  dead  woman  had  worn  most  sacredly. 
The  two  strangely  suited  mourners  looked  at  the  por- 
trait the  locket  contained — and  silently  closed  its 
case.  It  was  of  neither  of  them,  but  of  a  third  man ! 
...  And  yet  French  society  at  this  time  was  probably 
the  most  polished  the  world  has  ever  seen.  Manners 
were  almost  a  profession,  for  who  could  tell  what 
honor  might  not  hang  upon  a  bit  of  repartee  or  a  well- 
done  bow?  From  the  very  cradle  the  children  of  the 
nobility  and  rich  bourgeoisie  were  taught  the  ways  of 
the  great  world.  Family  life  itself  grew  into  a  mass 
of  etiquette.  Until  the  rise  of  Rousseau's  influence, 
children   were    apparently    turned    over   to    servants 


11 


40  The  French  Revolution 

and  teachers.  Talleyrand,  for  instance,  did  not  see  his 
parents  for  years,  and  when  about  ten  years  old  called 
on  his  mother  once  a  week,  on  her  reception-day.* 
Until  1783  little  boys  had  their  hair  powdered,  wore 
swords,  and  kissed  little  girls'  hands  with  all  the  dig- 
nity of  older  dandies.  A  girl  of  six  years  wore  corsets, 
a  hoop  petticoat,  false  hair,  and — sometimes — rou^ej 
Taine  rather  cuttingly  says  that  the  fulcrum  oTeduca- 
tion  was  the  dancing-master.^ 

It  must  not  be  forgotten,  however,  that  within  the 
salons  of  many  a  Paris  merchant,  learned  men  and 
brilliant  women  gathered  to  discuss  all  sorts  of  ques- 
tions in  philosophy  and  economy  and  theology. 
Those  who  shared  in  this  better  social  life  of  the  Old 
Regime  looked  back  to  it  as  a  golden  age.  And  it  was 
to  some  degree  characteristic  of  other  cities  than 
Paris.  These  salons  were  the  centers  of  that  political 
influence  so  largely  wielded  by  the  women  of  the  day, 
and  were  to  become  even  more  influential  in  the 
reform  movements  that  led  up  to  the  summoning  of 
the  States  General.  But  it  would  be  impossible  to  say 
that  they  indicated  or  generated  any  moral  virility 
or  conservative  influence.  They  were  the  stage  upon 
which  brilliant  talkers,  both  men  and  women,  could 
display  their  incomparable  wit  and  good  breeding; 
but   they   were    none    the    less    the    luxuries   of   the 

'Talleyrand,  Memoirs,  I,  9-11. 

•Arthur  Young  describes  the  reckless  driving  of  the  fashionable  folk  in 
Paris,  and  adds:  "If  young  noblemen  at  London  were  to  drive  their  chaises 
in  streets  without  foot-ways,  as  their  brethren  do  at  Paris,  they  would 
speedily  and  justly  get  very  well  threshed,  or  rolled  in  the  kennel."  And  he 
adds  this  very  curious  social  deduction  from  the  poor  character  of  cabs  and 
the  absence  of  sedan-chairs:  "To  this  circumstance  also  it  is  owing  that  all 
persons  of  small  or  moderate  fortune  are  forced  to  dress  in  black,  with  black 
stockings."  The  antipathy  of  the  revolutionary  regime  to  all  of  the  trap- 
pings of  aristocracy  may  have  been  due  in  part  to  these  facts. 


Social  Contrasts  and  Morality  41 

wealthy.  The  simple  fact  that  such  institutions  could 
flourish  then,  and  only  then,  is  a  testimony  to  the 
poverty  of  political  opportunity  and  the  wealth  of  the 
dilettante  spirit.^ 

A  meeting  of  the  Sons  of  Liberty  in  distressed  little 
Massachusetts  might  have  been  held  at  the  same  hour 
as  the  brilliant  gathering  in  some  Parisian  salon.  It 
could  have  been  no  more  radical  in  its  utterances; 
indeed,  beyond  the  accidents  of  place  and  dress  and 
etiquette,  it  could  not  have  been  more  distracted  with 
dreams  of  liberty.  That  one  wrought  a  different 
result  from  the  other  is  due,  of  course,  to  many 
causes,  but  to  none  more  fundamentally  than  this:  the 
salon  was  composed  of  dilettantes;  the  liberty  meet- 
ing of  Anglo-Saxon  men  of  affairs. 

*"The  society  [in  Paris]  for  a  man  of  letters,  or  who  has  any  scientific 
pursuit,  cannot  be  exceeded.  .  .  .  Persons  of  the  highest  rank  pay  an 
attention  to  science  and  literature,  and  emulate  the  character  they  confer. 
.  .  .  Politics  are  too  much  attended  to  in  England  to  allow  a  due  respect 
to  be  paid  to  anything  else;  and  should  the  French  establish  a  freer  govern- 
ment, academicians  will  not  be  held  in  such  estimation,  when  rivaled  in  the 
public  esteem  by  the  orators  who  hold  forth  liberty  and  property  in  a  free 
parliament."— Arthur  Young,  in  1787. 


CHAPTER    IV 

THE   CLERGY   AND    RELIGION 

I.  The  Privileged  and  Unprivileged:  i.  The  Higher  Clergy; 
2.  The  Curates  and  Vicars;  3.  Their  Respective  Incomes. 
II.  The  Clergy  and  the  Peasants.  III.  The  Clergy  and 
Society:  i.  Their  Attitude  toward  Intellectual  and  Religious 
Freedom;  2.  Unbelief;  3.  Credulity;  4.  The  Loss  of  Moral 
Influence. 

L^  ''  The  relations  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  of 
France  both  toward  the  Pope  and  toward  the  govern- 
ment for  centuries  had  been  marked  by  a  singular  com- 
bination of  independence  and  subservience.  Into  this 
troubled  matter,  however,  it  is  not  necessary  for  the 
student  of  the  Revolution  to  enter.  Until  the  forma- 
tion of  the  civil  code  of  the  clergy,  which  was  to  play 
so  prominent  a  part  in  the  early  period  of  the  Revo- 
lution, the  clergy  may  be  regarded  as  an  order  of  the 
state  so  compacted  by  history  and  community  of  in- 
terests as  to  be  practically  a  unit — certainly  the  most 
unified  of  the  three  orders  of  the  nation.  Yet  even 
within  the  church  there  was  the  fatal  cleavage  into  the 
privileged  and  the  unprivileged.  The  former  included 
archbishops,  bishops,  abbots,  and  other  high  clergy, 
while  the  curates,  or  country  parsons,  who  did  the 
great  work  of  the  church,  constituted  the  mass  of 
unprivileged.  These  curates,  though  as  a  class  by  no 
means  models  of  pastoral  activity,  were  in  sympathy 

43 


The  Clergy  and  Religion  43 

with  the  oppressed  peasantry,  for  they  themselves 
were  drawn  almost  exclusively  from  the  lower  classes 
of  the  Third  Estate,  and  could  never  hope  to  rise  into 
the  great  offices.  The  church  of  France  herein  was 
inferior  to  the  church  of  the  Middle  Ages.  In  the 
eleventh  century  the  son  of  a  poor  carpenter  became 
Gregory  VIL,  and  a  wandering  English  priest,  Ha- 
drian IV.  A  few  figures  will  tell  more  eloquently  than 
description  just  what  the  relation  of  these  two  classes 
to  each  other  was.  The  total  number  of  monks  has 
been  estimated  at  23,000;  of  nuns,  37,000.  Of  the 
secular  clergy  there  were  60,000  curates  and  vicars, 
and  about  11,000  higher  clergy.  This  in  a  population 
of  26,000,000  is  not  excessive.  Yet  the  church  held 
in  real  property  in  1789  perhaps  a  fifth  of  all  France. 
Its  total  wealth  amounted  to  perhaps  a  billion  dollars, 
and  its  total  income  was  about  $60,000,000.^  Of  this 
sum  the  higher  clergy  had  five-sixths,  the  curates  had 
the  rest.  The  average  salary  received  by  the  curates 
in  1784  was  the  largest  ever  known  in  France,  and 
it  amounted  to  $140.  This,  considering  the  purchasing 
power  of  money,  would  have  enabled  them  to  keep 
body  and  soul  together,  but  out  of  it  they  had  to 
pay  a  tax  of  $15  or  $20.  "I  pity,"  said  Voltaire, 
*'the  lot  of  the  country  pastor,  obliged  to  contend 
for  a  sheaf  of  wheat  with  his  unfortunate  parishioner. " 
Contrast  with  this  pittance  the  incomes  of  the  higher 
clergy.  Even  a  monk  enjoyed  an  income  of  about 
$800  a  year.  The  abbot  of  Clairvaux — the  successor 
of  St.   Bernard! — never  drove   out   except  with  four 

'S36,ooo,(X)o  from  tithes  and  $24,000,000  from  landed  property;  but  these 
figures  are  not  unquestionable,  and  include  the  cost  of  collecting  the  tithes. 
Taine  makes  the  total  net  income  $40,000,000.    {Ancient  Regimt,  14.) 


44  The  French  Revolution 

horses  and  preceded  by  a  mounted  groom.  The  aver- 
age income  of  the  131  archbishops  and  bishops  was  be- 
tween $10,000  and  $20,000.  The  abbot  of  Clairvaux 
had  an  income  of  $60,000  to  $75,000;  Cardinal  de 
Rohan,  of  $200,000.  His  palace  had  700  beds  and 
his  stables  accommodation  for  180  horses.  He  had 
fourteen  butlers,  and  could  entertain  at  one  time  200 
guests  with  their  servants.  Cardinal  de  Rohan,  it  is 
true,  was  the  most  magnificent  as  well  as  wealthiest  of 
the  ecclesiastics,  but  others  were  not  far  behind  him. 
^  .  If  this  well-to-do  and  privileged  clergy  had  only 
earned  their  pay,  if  they  had  shared  at  all  in  the  work 
of  improving  the  condition  of  the  lower  classes,  this 
disproportion  in  income  would  be  more  excusable; 
but  as  a  matter  of  fact,  with  notable  exceptions,  the 
upper  clergy  were  corrupt  and  useless.  The  curates 
and  vicars  did  about  all  the  church  work  that  was 
done.  In  many  cases  these  unfortunate  men  were 
hired,  at  a  beggarly  pittance,  by  some  clergyman  or 
monastery  enjoying  a  good  income  to  attend  to  the 
work  of  the  parish,  while  their  employer  enjoyed  him- 
self in  Paris.  The  abbot  of  Sainte-Croix  de  Bernay, 
in  Normandy,  received  $11,400  a  year,  but  lived  in 
Paris  and  hired  a  curate  for  $210  to  care  for  the 
parish  of  4,000  communicants.  And  the  worst  of  it 
all  was  that  the  curate,  like  the  private  soldier,  had 
no  hope  of  promotion.  The  higher  clergy,  like  the 
officers,  were  drawn  from  the  nobility  and  richer  bour- 
geoisie. Of  all  the  131  archbishops  and  bishops,  only 
five  (and  they  the  poorest)  were  from  the  lower  classes. 
Ecclesiastical  as  well  as  military  offices  went  by  favor. 
The  possible  future  the  curate  must  expect  was  to 


The  Clergy  and  Religion  45 

continue  his  work  among  the  half-starved  and  over- 
taxed peasants,  and  keep  body  and  soul  together  as 
best  he  could  on  his  wages.  It  is  only  natural  to  dis- 
cover, therefore,  that  the  curates  sided  with  the  other 
unprivileged  classes,  and  when  the  opportunity  came, 
opposed  the  upper  clergy. 

The  clergy  derived  a  vast  income  from  the  tithes.' 
These  were  not  always  a  tenth  of  the  produce  of  the 
farmer,  but  are  supposed  by  Taine  to  have  equaled 
fourteen  per  cent  of  the  entire  product.  Even  if  this 
be  an  exaggeration,  it  remains  true  that  the  tithes  were 
paid  by  the  peasant  and  not  by  the  proprietor,  and  were 
therefore  in  addition  to  taxes  and  feudal  dues.  The 
chief  if  not  the  only  justification  for  this  ecclesiastical 
tax  lay  in  the  fact  that  the  tithes  constituted  the  only 
poor-fund  in  France. 

But  we  are  not  quite  done  with  the  higher  clergy. 
In  speaking  of  them,  it  has  to  be  remembered  that 
under  the  Old  Regime  the  upper  clergy  were  something 
more  than  mere  pastors  and  preachers.  They  were 
also  feudal  lords,  enjoying  the  privileges  of  feudalism. 
Thirty-two  bishops  and  many  abbots  besides  were  the 
temporal  as  well  as  spiritual  lords  of  cities  and  ter- 
ritory, the  receivers  of  all  sorts  of  feudal  dues.  As 
feudal  lords,  these  great  ecclesiastics  held  their  courts, 
administered  their  estates,  enjoyed  their  feudal  dues, 
and  maintained  a  glorious  company  of  attendants. 
And  what  is  far  more  disgraceful,  as  feudal  lords  some 
of  them  kept  serfs. 

'In  1789  this  amounted  to  $36,600,000.  See  Bailly,  Hist.  Finan.  de  la 
France,  II,  278.  It  is  to  be  remembered  that  the  church  paid  practically  no 
taxes.  When  reorganized  in  1790,  approximately  $37,000,000  were  appro- 
priated by  the  state  for  all  ecclesiastics. 


46  The  French  Revolution 

.^,-lrr"^  ]  The  influence  of  the  church  upon  social  life  had 
.^-  greatly  diminished.  The  peasantry  chafed  under  being 
forced  to  give  fourteen  per  cent  of  their  incomes  to 
the  clergy  as  tithes,  hated  the  higher  clergy  as  feudal 
lords,  and  appreciated  their  curates  only  as  the  curates 
shared  in  the  common  distress.  Only  in  Vendue  and 
a  few  similarly  situated  provinces  were  the  upper 
clergy  held  by  their  people  in  such  affection  that 
actual  civil  war  followed  the  attempt  to  put  in  force 
the  constitution  of  1791,  with  its  provisions  for  making 
the  clergy  civil  officials.  Speaking  generally,  the 
church  had  lost  its  hold,  also,  upon  the  higher  classes. 
The  philosophic  age  was  bitterly  anti-ecclesiastical, 
even  when  not  anti-Christian.  Singularly  enough, 
although  holding  strenuously  to  their  ecclesiastical 
prerogatives,  the  upper  clergy  were  affected  by  the 
current  skepticism.  A  curate  of  Paris  was  once 
asked  whether  the  bishops  really  believed  the  doc- 
trines upon  which  they  insisted  so  strenuously. 
*'There  may  be  four  or  five,"  he  replied.  It  will 
not  do  to  take  such  a  bit  of  flotsam  too  seri- 
ously, but  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  leading 
churchmen  gravely  discussed  the  probability  of  im- 
mortality, and  were  in  some  cases  openly  profli- 
gate. So  far  as  its  more  lucrative  offices  were  Con- 
cerned, the  church  had  become  a  mere  profession, 
to  which  bright  young  men  with  no  other  prospects 
could  be  apprenticed.  What  religious  influence 
could  one  expect  to  be  exerted  by  men  like  Cardinal 
de  Rohan,  or  like  Talleyrand  of  Autun?  Yet  the 
church  still  persecuted  Protestants.  In  Normandy 
we    find    the    clergy    wishing   laws    preventing    the 


The  Clergy  and  Religion  47 

"Protestants  from  building  churches,  and  even  from 
assembling  at  sound  of  the  bell  that  called  Catholics 
to  service."^  The  otherwise  rather  remarkably  lib- 
eral cahier^  of  the  clergy  of  Blois^  laments  the  exten- 
sion of  religious  liberty  to  Protestants,  as  well  as  the 
growing  freedom  of  the  press.  Lomenie  de  Brienne, 
an  archbishop  though  a  notorious  unbeliever,  in 
addressing  Louis  XVI.  at  his  coronation,  said:  "Com- 
plete the  work  of  Louis  the  Great.  To  you  is  reserved 
the  privilege  of  giving  the  final  blow  to  Calvinism  in 
your  kingdom."  This  exhortation  was  very  possibly 
merely  official,  but  not  so  the  work  of  clergy  in  Langue- 
doc,  where  the  bishops  controlled  the  province.  There, 
almost  to  the  time  of  the  calling  of  the  States  General 
in  1789,  congregations  were  broken  up  by  dragoons,  and 
Protestant  ministers  were  hanged.*  Even  such  cahiers 
of  the  clergy  in  1789  as  do  not  lament  the  extension 
of  religious  freedom  to  Calvinists,  believe  the  royal 
decree  of  1788  allowing  them  political  protection  far 
too  generous.  They  would  at  least  keep  Calvinists 
out  from  all  judicial  offices,  and  Necker,  when  in  fact 
at  the  head  of  the  national  finances,  was  not  allowed 
his  proper  position  in  the  cabinet  simply  because  he 
was  a  Protestant.  One  cause  of  the  great  popularity 
of  Voltaire  during  the  latter  part  of  his  life  is  to  be 
found  in  his  securing  a  pension  for  the  family  of  the 
executed  Protestant  Calas. 

'Chassin,  Cahiers,  ij8q,  II,  192. 

'Instructions  given  their  delegates  to  the  States  General  in  1789. 

^It  is  signed  by  fifty-three  parish  priests,  fourteen  priors,  eight  canons, 
eight  priests,  three  deans,  three  abbots,  three  curates,  a  chaplain,  a  friar, 
a  deacon,  and  twenty-seven  unclassified  persons. 

♦Relatively  this  is  not  as  atrocious  as  it  sounds.  Absolute  religious 
freedom  was  practically  unknown  in  the  eighteenth  century  throughout 
Europe.    Even  in  America  it  was  a  novelty. 


48  The  French  Revolution 

fj  Despite  (or  quite  as  possibly,  on  account  of)  this 
Intolerance,  unbelief  spread  rapidly  among  the  bour- 
geoisie and  the  nobility.  In  1764  Hume,  at  a  dinner 
in  Paris,  happened  to  say  that  he  had  never  chanced  to 
meet  an  atheist.  "You  have  been  somewhat  unfortu- 
nate," said  his  host;  "but  at  the  present  moment  you 
are  sitting  at  table  with  seventeen  of  them. "  Indeed, 
it  is  altogether  probable  that  in  no  other  age  has  the 
great  mass  of  intelligent  persons  so  uniformly  endeav- 
ored to  fulfill  the  law  of  atheistic  philosophy  and  rid 
themselves  of  "the  fear  of  invisible  powers. ' '  Horace 
Walpole,  who  would  scarcely  be  classed  among  radical 
Christians,  writes  with  fine  sarcasm  from  France  in 
1765,  "They  think  me  quite  profane  for  having  any 
belief  left."  Yet  it  is  possible  that  as  in  so  many 
aspects  of  French  life  a  reaction  had  set  in  by  1789, 
for  the  more  atheistic  philosophy  of  Diderot  had  quite 
given  way  to  the  teachings  of  Rousseau,  in  which  the 
idea  of  God  played  no  small  logical  part.  There  was, 
however,  no  appreciable  return  to  the  church,  and  the 
conduct  of  leading  ecclesiastics,  as  well  as  the  enforced 
privations  of  the  curates  and  vicars,  made  ecclesias- 
tical influence  morally  ineffective. 

JLil  Along  with  this  decay  of  faith  came  a  sudden, 
though  natural,  outburst  of  credulity  among  the  bour- 
geoisie and  nobles.  In  some  ways  this  credulity  was 
to  have  unexpected  results.  Believers  in  occultism 
joined  themselves  into  the  enigmatical  society  of  the 
lUuminati,  which  was  supposed  to  have  lodges  in  all 
parts  of  France,  and  whose  mysterious  symbols,  "L. 
P.  D.,"  came  later  to  be  interpreted  as  Lilia pedibus 
distrue — "trample  the  lilies  (of  the  house  of  Bourbon) 


The  Clergy  and  Religion  49 

under  foot."  And  there  was  Lavater,  who  could  read 
men's  futures  in  their  faces,  and  Mesmer,  who,  driven 
politely  from  Vienna,  came  to  Paris  with  his  animal 
magnetism  to  win  enormous  popularity  and  fees, 
though  at  the  end  to  be  put  to  flight  by  a  royal  inves- 
tigating commission  of  physicians.  And  besides  these 
there  were  not  a  few  others — Cazatte,  Montgolfier, 
Baboeuf,  Puysegur.  But  most  fantastic  of  all  the 
prophets  whom  the  emancipated  Parisians — and  such 
provincials  as  were  received — went  out  to  see  and  to 
bring  in  to  honor  was  one  Cagliostro.  This  magnifi- 
cent charlatan  began  his  career  one  can  hardly  say 
where,  but  in  1781  he  was  astonishing  the  people  of 
Strasburg  by  his  cures.  He  was  one  of  the  Illuminati, 
but  exceeded  the  boldest  of  that  body.  He  declared 
he  had  been  a  friend  of  Abraham,  had  been  one  of 
the  guests  at  the  wedding  in  Cana,  and  had  discovered 
the  art  of  living  forever.  His  mighty  gift  of  lying 
fairly  dazzled  society  into  taking  him  at  his  own  valu- 
ation. De  Rohan,  a  cardinal  of  the  church,  is  said  to 
have  erected  to  him  a  marble  bust  with  an  inscription 
hailing  him  as  God  of  the  earth.  His  cures  were 
counted  miracles.  He  was  said  to  make  diamonds 
out  of  nothing.  His  charities  were  boundless,  his 
wealth  apparently  limitless.  Altogether  he  is  the 
most  splendid  rascal  of  his  sort  one  meets  in  history. 
But  he  was  no  more  ready  to  deceive  than  society  was 
eager  to  be  duped.  Take,  for  instance,  his  resurrec- 
ition  of  D'Alembert,  the  atheist,  one  of  the  writers  of 
fche  Encyclopedie.  Cagliostro  gathered  his  audience  at 
ihree  in  the  morning  and  placed  them  in  front  of  an 
Iron  chain  and  put  out  the  light.     A  mysterious  voice 


^o  The  French  Revolution 

bade  all  unpleasant  reptiles  and  unfree  men  depart. 
A  gleaming  chair  appeared,  with  the  words  Philosophy, 
Nature^  Truth  successively  appearing  above  it.  The 
chain  rattled,  and  in  the  chair  appeared  a  skeleton 
wrapped  in  a  winding-sheet.  It  was  D'Alembert,  long 
since  dead.  He  could  hear,  but  could  not  speak  aloud. 
Cagliostro,  however,  knew  what  he  would  say!  So 
they  questioned  him.  Among  others,  some  one  asl^d 
him  if  he  had  seen  the  other  world.  True  to  his 
pre-mortal  unbelief  the  ghostly  philosopher  replied, 
"There  is  no  other  world. "  It  does  not  seem  tc^  have 
been  asked  whence,  if  there  were  no  other  world,  the 
specter  came.  Such  skepticism  would  have  been 
unworthy  of  these  skeptics! 
/(^  It  was  inevitable  that  in  this  breaking  down  of  reli- 
gious authority  and  faith,  morality  itself  should  also 
have  lost  its  authoritative  elements,  and  to  this  cause 
must  be  largely  attributed  the  spectacle  of  a  society 
almost  perfect  in  its  outer  habits  lost  in  perverse 
immorality  and  selfishness. 

All  this  in  time  was  to  react  with  fearful  violence 
upon  the  church  itself.  The  sight  of  the  luxury  of  the 
higher  clergy,  righteous  indignation  that  they  should 
wring  their  dues  from  peasants  already  overburdened 
with  taxes,  was  working  a  fierce  hatred  of  clergy  and 
church  alike.  If  the  Revolution  seems  godless,  the 
cause  is  to  be  found  chiefly  in  the  godless  church  of 
the  Old  Regime.  Faith,  indeed,  there  was  in  France, 
but  a  faith  that  had  its  grounds  in  philos4)phy> .  not- 
religion.  Reformers  there  were  in  Fr^n c e, '''"'***■ '^ 
reforms — but  nothing  needed   both   more-^-lhan  ;.;tl 


The  Clergy  and  Religion 


51 


church  of  France.  The  friend  of  the  rich,  living  oft 
the  poor,  the  enemy  of  intellectual  freedom,  the 
champion  of  abuse,  the  sharer  in  moral  degeneracy — 
the  salt  had  lost  its  savor,  wherewith  could  it  be 
salted? 


>' 


CHAPTER   V 

INTELLECTUAL   EMANCIPATION   THROUGH    PHILOS- 
OPHY 

I.  Montesquieu:  i.  Early  Life;  2.  Position  as  to  Monarchy  and 
the  State;  3.  EfiFect  of  His  Work.  IL  The  Physiocrats. 
III.  Voltaire:  i.  Early  Life  and  Remarkable  Talents;  2.  His 
Attitude  toward  Religion  and  the  Church;  3.  His  Chief 
Significance.  IV.  The  Encyclopedists:  i.  Hostility  to  Reli- 
gion; 2.  General  Destructive  Influence.  V.  Rousseau: 
I.  Early  Life;  2.  Dijon  Essays;  3.  The  Social  Contract ; 
4.  His  Extraordinary  Influence  on  Society  and  Politics. 
VI.  The  Absence  of  Intellectual  Freedom  m  France. 

The  French  Revolution  was  in  large  measure  due 
to  the  passion  for  liberty  and  equality  aroused  by  the 
great  philosophical  movement  which  swept  over 
Europe  during  the  eighteenth  century.  In  no  period 
of  the  world's  history,  except,  perhaps,  our  own  age, 
has  thought  been  more  active  than  in  France  during 
the  half-century  just  preceding  the  Revolution.  And 
there  was  no  more  potent  agent  in  the  destruction  of 
the  monarchy  than  the  philosophy  that  seemed  to 
many  the  chief  ornament  of  the  reigns  of  Louis  XV. 
and  Louis  XVI. 

But  France  did  not  furnish  the  o^^^inaterial 
for  this  thought;  that  was  done  by^^^^|BHM|||^ 
Germany,  and  especially  of  Englan^^^R^s^5™ 
one  has  said,  have  to  pass  through  Frame  to  ]jc  bopa 
larized.     Whether  or  not  this  is  true  un  i| 

53 


Intellectual  Emancipation        ^    53 

certainly  true  of  that  peculiarly  revolutionary  thought 
that  spread  over  all  the  western  world  in  the  eighteenth 
century.*  The  mediating  office  of  the  French  may  be 
said  to  have  first  been  filled  by  the  ^reat  political 
philosopher  Montesquieu.^  Born  of  a  noble  family, 
and  inheriting  from  his  uncle  the  important  and  lucra- 
tive office  of  president  of  the  Parlement  of  Bordeaux, 
after  a  few  years  of  official  life  he  sold  his  place  and 
devoted  himself  to  travel.  He  went  to  England  in 
1729  as  a  friend  of  Lord  Chesterfield,  and  immediately 
devoted  himself  to  the  study  of  its  constitution. 
England  seemed  to  him  "the  most  free  country  in 
the  world."  From  this  visit  may  probably  be  dated 
his  bias  in  favor  of  the  English  form  of  monarchy. 
V-  The  fundamental  purpose  of  his  political  philosoph5r- 
was  the  discovery  of  some  absolute,  natural  standard 
of  justice  by  which  all  laws  might  be  tested  and  to 
which  they  should  conform.  But  unlike  some  of  his 
contemporaries,  Montesquieu  finds  this  standard  in 
human  reason.  "Law  in  general  is  human  reason  in 
so  far  as  it  governs  all  the  nations  of  the  earth;  and 
the  political  and  civil  laws  of  each  nation  should  be 
but  the  particular  cases  to  which  that  human  reason 
is  applied."  And  he  goes  on  to  say  that  "the 
government  most  in  conformity  with  nature  is  that 
whose  particular  disposition  is  most   in  accord   with 

'On  the  influence  of  English  on  French  thought  in  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury, see  Buckle,  History  of  Civilization  in  England,  I,  ch.  12. 

''Montesquieu's  epoch-making  work,  Esi)rit  des  Lois  (English  transla- 
^5,tion  by  Nugent,  spirit  of  the  Laws),  was  published  in  1748.  It  had  been 
f.  '"^preceded  in  173^  by  his  almost  equally  famous  book.  Considerations  sur  les 
i  ^'Causes -de  la  GYandeur  et  de  la  Decadence  des  Romains,  which  is  the 
V  first  serious  attempt  in  modern  times  at  presenting  a  philosophy  of  history. 
;i  :PreviQds  to  these  works  he  had  published,  in  1721,  Lettres  Persiennes,  a 
satire  sometimes  licentious  but  always  witty,  upon  the  France  of  the 
Regency. 


54  The  French  Revolution 

the  disposition  of  the  people  for  which  it  is  estab- 

Jished."' 

-^  Over  against  current  French  ideas  he  declared  that 
"the  conjunction  of  the  wills  of  individuals  constitutes 
a  state,"  and  that  laws  "should  be  adapted  in  such 
a  manner  to  the  people  for  whom  they  are  framed, 
that  it  should  be  a  great  chance  if  those  of  one  nation 
suit  another."^  Yet  here  he  halts.  A  republic,  he 
thought,  could  naturally  have  only  a  small  territory, 
for  in  a  large  republic — and  his  words,  written  before 
1748,  were,  of  course,  those  of  total  ignorance  of  any 
such  republic — he  supposed  public  good  would  be 
"sacrificed  to  a  thousand  private  views."  A  mon- 
archy, he  goes  on  to  say,  should  be  of  moderate  rather 
than  either  small  or  great  size;  and  he  could  see  for 
an  empire  no  possible  form  of  government  but  a  des- 
potism in  which  "the  law  should  be  derived  from 
a  single  person."'  All  this  is  far  from  revolutionary 
teaching;  and  how  conservative  he  was  appears  also 
in  these  words:  "It  is  sometimes  necessary  to  change 
certain  laws,  but  the  case  is  rare;  and  when  it  comes 
they  ought  to  be  touched  only  with  a  trembling  hand"  ; 
and  perhaps  even  more  in  his  assertion  that  political, 
.Jike  moral  good,  lies  between  extremes.* 

So  far  as  a  correct  philosophy  of  the  state  is 
concerned,  Montesquieu  was  often  far  astray.  His 
erudition,  though  great,  was  often  superficial,  and 
sometimes  invalidated  his  generalizations.  He  mag- 
nifies the  influence  of  natural  forces  like  climate  and 

*  Esprit  des  Lois,  bk.  i,  ch.  3. 

*  Esprit  des  Lois,  bk.  i,  ch.  3. 
^Esprit  des  Lois,  bk.  viii,  chs.  i6-ao. 

*  Esprit  des  Lois,  bk.  xxix,  ch.  1. 


Intellectual  Emancipation  $^ 

soil,  he  does  not  perceive  clearly  the  distinction 
between  absolute  and  responsible  rulers ;  and  although 
he  recognizes  the  necessity  of  a  division  of  the  three 
functions  of  a  state,  he  does  not  insist  upon  the  inde- 
pendence of  the  judiciary.  The  effect  of  his  work, 
marked  as  it  was  by  profound  learning  and  sober 
judgment,  was  greater  in  England  and  America  than 
in  France;  yet  even  in  France  it  served  to  bring  into 
sharp  relief  the  burdens  and  inequalities  of  a  nation 
so  far  removed  from  anything  like  legal  uniformity  or 
the  enjoyment  of  universal  justice.  But  more  impor- 
tant, it  ushered  in  that  great  philosophical  crusade  of 
which  Quesnay  and  the  Physiocrats,  Voltaire  and  the 
Encyclopedists,  were  the  leaders.  Beside  the  radical- 
ism of  these  philosophers  the  moderation  of  Montes- 
quieu is  very  marked;  to  the  philosophers  themselves 
it  was  immeasurably  hateful.^ 

At  the  same  time  that  Montesquieu  was  laying  the 
foundations  for  modern  political  science,  Frangois 
Quesnay  and  Jean  Claude  Marie  Vincent  were  laying 
the  foundations  for  modern  economics.  The  so-called 
Mercantilist  school  of  economists  had  held  that  national 
wealth  depends  upon  the  accumulation  of  precious 
metals  by  a  country  and  the  consequent  maintenance 
of  a  ''favorable"  balance  of  trade.  Agriculture  had 
therefore  been  neglected,  and  commerce  emphasized. 
The  result  of  these  teachings  had  been  that  from  the 
time  of  their  great  French  champion,  Colbert,  the 
minister  of  Louis  XIV.,  government  had  devoted  itself 

*The  best  biography  of  Montesquieu  is  Vian,  yie  de  Montesquieu.  See 
further,  Lowell,  Eve  of  French  Revolution,  ch.  lo;  Flint,  Philosophy  of  His- 
tory, 262-280;  Woolsey,  Political  Science,  I,  168-171;  L6vy-Bruhl,  History  of 
Modern  Philosophy  in  France,  ch.  5. 


56  The  French  Revolution 

to  the  regulation  of  trade  by  all  sorts  of  subsidies  and 
restrictions.  But  both  in  France  and  England,  as 
men  came  under  the  influence  of  the  philosophical 
impulse,  such  artificial  notions  grew  unpopular,'  and 
chiefly  under  the  influence  of  Quesnay  there  grew  up 
^  school  known  as  the  Physiocrats,  because  of  its 
insistence  upon  "nature."  So  far  from  regarding 
!  commerce  as  the  sole  source  of  a  nation's  wealth,  the 
1/iPhysiocrats  declared  that  however  useful  the  calling  of 
''merchants  might  be,  it  was  * 'sterile,"  since  all  their 
profits  came  ultimately  from  the  farmer.  It  was  but 
a  legitimate  outcome  of  these  views  when  they  taught 
that  as  the  land  was  the  sole  source  of  wealth,  so  it 
should  be  the  sole  object  of  taxation.  Further  than 
this,  they  insisted  upon  the  abolition  of  all  govern- 
mental restrictions  of  an  economic  sort  and  upon  per- 
fect freedom  of  trade  as  a  natural  right.  ^'Zaissez  \ 
faire^  laissez  passer  '  was  the  motto  they  would  give  to 
governments.^  **Let  every  man  be  free  to  cultivate 
in  his  field  such  crops  as  his  interest,  his  means,  the 
nature  of  the  ground,  may  suggest  as  rendering  the 
greatest  possible  return" — these  words  of  Quesnay 
are  a  truism  to-day,  but  were  almost  revolutionary 
when  the  Royal  Council,  through  an  intendant,  fixed 
for  a  town  or  parish  the  crop  it  should  plant,  under 
threat  of  severe  punishment.  But  even  more  revolu- 
tionary was  the  implication,  more  or  less  explicitly 
drawn  by  the  school,  that  government,  though  neces- 

' Richard  Cantillon  was  the  forerunner  of  the  new  physiocratic  school. 
See  Jevons,  Contemporary  Review,  June,  1881.  His  most  important  work, 
Essai  sur  la  Nature  du  Commerce  en  General^  has  been  republished  (1892) 
in  Harvard  University  Publications. 

*0n  the  Physiocrats,  see  especially  Lalor,  Cyclopedia  of  Political 
Economy,  Art.  "Physiocrats";  Blanqui,  History  of  Political  Economy,  ch. 
32;  Ingram,  History  of  Political  Economy,  ch.  5.  ' 


Intellectual  Emancipation  57 

sary  so  far  as  politics  went,  was  a  necessary  evil, 
and  that  in  the  economic  sphere  every  individual 
should  be  allowed  his  natural  rights  to  labor  when, 
where,  and  as  he  chose,  and  to  enjoy  the  fruits  of  his 
labor  subject  to  no  indirect  tax  of  any  description. 
Monopolies  and  special  privileges  were  not  to  be 
thought  of. 

With  their  technical  teaching  as  to  natural  laws 
governing  wages  and  profits,  with  their  belief  in 
a  "natural  value"  for  all  commodities,  with  the  elab- 
orate exposition  of  the  increase  of  the  "net  product" 
as  the  great  desideratum  in  national  economy — with  all 
these,  now,  like  other  of  their  doctrines,  hardly  more 
than  a  part  of  the  archaeology  of  economic  science, 
we  need  not  concern  ourselves.  But  one  must  observe 
that  in  their  general  principles  lay  one  source  of  an 
irrepressible  conflict.  Economic  France  was  actually 
a  mass  of  privilege,  and  to  embody  the  teaching  of  the 
Physiocrat  in  law  meant  the  destruction  of  privilege. 
And  this  was  what  Turgot,  the  greatest  of  the  school, 
actually  did  while  intendant  at  Limoges,  and  attempted 
to  do  during  the  few  months  he  was  minister  of  finance, 
with  what  success  will  appear  presently. 

But  while  the  Physiocrats  were  seeking  soberly  to 
reform  the  scandalous  economic  condition  of  the 
nation,  they  were  quite  unnoticed  in  comparison  with 
the  Philosophers,  whose  chief  virtues  were  abstract 
generalizations  and  an  ability  to  appeal  to  elemental 
principles  and  passions. 

Here  again  there  is  the  revolt  against  the  iniquity  of 
privilege.  The  entire  philosophy  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  in  France  and  out  of  France — as  witness  the 


JiC= 


58  The  French  Revolution 

/  American  Declaration  of  Independence — is  concerned 
with  rights — natural  rights.  Privilege  and  inequality — 
these  were  the  ineradicable  traits  of  the  Old  Regime. 
Equality  of  rights  and  the  destruction  of  all  authority 
not  based  on  nature — these  are  the  core  of  the  teach- 
ings of  Voltaire,  the  Encyclopedists,  and  Rousseau. 

Obnoxious  from  its  insincerity  and  pretensions,  the 
church  was  the  first  representative  of  privilege  and 
unnatural  authority  to  provoke  attack,  and  its  most 
able,  though  by  no  means  bitterest  critic,  was  Fran- 
cois Marie  Arouet,  better  known  from  his  assumed 
name,  Voltaire.' 
^  I  Voltaire  was  born  February  20,  1694.  He  received 
an  education  at  a  Jesuit  college,  and  later  became  the 
secretary  of  the  French  ambassador  at  the  Hague. 
He  lost  this  position  because  of  a  love  affair,  con- 
ducted, it  almost  seems,  as  a  sort  of  experiment  in 
philanthropy.  Returning  to  France,  he  attempted  to 
study  law,  but  was  held  by  the  authorities  to  have 
published  a  poem  against  the  Jesuits,  and  was  thrown 
into  the  Bastile.  Then  he  turned  to  literature,  and 
composed  the  drama  of  (EdipCy  though  for  lack  of  pen 
and  ink  it  was  not  written  until  his  release.  Once 
free,  he  composed  the  Henriade^  and  mingled  in  the 
most  brilliant  society  of  the  day.  He  became  involved 
in  a  quarrel  with  a  member  of  the  Rohan  family,  who, 
finding  the  young  poet  more  than  his  match  in  repar- 
tee, inveigled  him  from  a  reception  into  the  street, 
where  he  was  thoroughly  beaten  by  lackeys.     Voltaire 

'On  Voltaire,  see  Desnoiresterres.  Voltaire  et  la  Societe  Fratifaise  au 
XVI He  Siicle;  Morley,  Voltaire;  Flint,  Philosophy  of  History.  289-304: 
McCarthy,  French  Reiwlution,  1,  40-S6;  Carlyle.  Essays  (Am.  ed.),  II,  5-78; 
L6vy-Bruhl,  History  of  Modern  Philosophy  in  France,  ch.  6. 


Intellectual  Emancipation  59 

rushed  to  a  fencing-master,  and  after  a  month's  prac- 
tice, challenged  the  noble.  Rohan  refused  to  fight, 
and  through  family  influence  had  Voltaire  again 
thrown  into  the  Bastile.  After  an  imprisonment  of 
six  months,  however,  he  was  released,  and  immedi- 
ately went  to  England.  There  he  lived  three  years  in 
closest  touch  with  the  English  philosophers,  most  of 
whom,  it  will  be  recalled,  were  deists. 

This  sojourn  in  England  was  the  turning-point  in 
Voltaire's  life.  He  had  no  love  for  a  church  and 
a  nobility  that  had  twice  imprisoned  him  without 
trial,  and  on  his  return  to  the  continent  he  threw 
himself  passionately  into  a  crusade  against  both,  but 
especially  against  the  former.  From  this  time  till 
his  death,  whether  living  with  that  most  mathematical 
woman,  Madame  du  Chatelet,  or  visiting  and  quarrel- 
ing with  Frederick  II.  of  Prussia,  or  enjoying  the 
admiration — and  fear — of  all  Europe  in  his  retreat  at 
Ferney,  Voltaire  was  the  most  influential  man  of  his 
age.  His  talent  was  almost  universal.  He  was  a  good 
philosopher,  a  good  scientist,  a  good  historian,  and 
a  poet  that  barely  missed  being  immortal.  Nothing 
was  foreign  to  his  restless  mind.  One  minute  he  is 
urging  that  dead  people  should  be  buried  outside 
cities;  at  another  he  is  an  enthusiast  for  vaccination; 
now  he  writes  volumes  on  physics;  now  he  is  experi- 
menting with  light;  now  he  writes  a  history  of  Louis 
XIV.  or  Charles  XII.  of  Sweden,  whose  charm  men  can- 
not yet  escape ;  now  he  is  a  poet  and  a  dramatist,  who 
lives  down  a  generation  of  hatred  and  dies,  all  but 
literally,  of  glory.  But  in  all  he  is  a  master  of  a  satire 
and  sarcasm  that  sting  like  acid;  and  in  philosophy, 


6o  The  French  Revolution 

history,  science,  poetry,  theology,  politics,  satire,  is 
he  the  incarnation  of  the  spirit  of  a  century  that 
played  at  omniscience  and  laughed  at  belief  in  omnis- 
cience. 

He  was  no  atheist;  rather  he  was  a  deist.  **If 
there  were  no  God,  we  should  have  to  create  one," 
he  said;  and  at  Ferney  he  erected  a  little  chapel  bear- 
ing this  inscription,  Deo  erexit  Voltaire.  And  God 
must  be  just  and  intelligent.  "I  had  rather,"  he  says 
in  Candide^  *' worship  a  limited  than  a  wicked  God. 
I  cannot  possibly  offend  him  when  I  say:  'Thou  hast 
done  all  that  a  powerful,  kind,  and  wise  being  could 
do.  It  is  not  thy  fault  if  thy  works  cannot  be  as  good 
and  perfect  as  thou  art."  Yet  at  the  same  time  so 
completely  was  he  under  the  influence  of  his  age's 
reaction  against  the  church  that  he  was  capable  of 
appreciating  religion  only  in  the  same  proportion 
as  it  was  not  characteristically  Christian.  Nor  is  it 
quite  true  that,  as  Carlyle  says,  the  doctrine  of  the 
"plenary  inspiration  of  the  Scriptures  is  the  single 
wall  against  which,  through  long  years,  and  with 
innumerable  battering-rams  and  catapults  and  pop- 
guns, he  unweariedly  battered."'  It  is  rather  against 
the  arrogant  infallibility  of  the  church  of  his  day, 
whether  Roman  or  Protestant;  its  insistence  to  the 
extent  of  persecution  upon  the  necessity  of  accepting 
its  doctrines;  its  hostility  to  free  thought;  its  ascet- 
icism; its  hypocrisy.  Being  naturally  without  vener- 
ation, and  inimitable  in  his  power  of  satire,  in  giving 
vent  to  this  hatred  he  probably  did  more  than  any 
man  of  his  time  to  break  down  the  foundations  of 

»CarIyle,  Essays,  II  (Am.  ed.),  66. 


Intellectual  Emancipation  6i 

regard  for  religious  authority  that  also  support  regard 
for  authority  in  general.  Yet  however  much  he 
sought  to  rid  men's  minds  of  superstition;  however 
much — as  in  the  case  of  the  unjustly  imprisoned  heretic, 
Galas — he  proved  himself  the  champion  of  religious 
liberty;  however  much  his  life  exhibited  charity — it 
is  hard  for  his  most  ardent  admirer  to  construct  from 
his  writings  a  positive  system  of  thought  in  any 
department,  and  least  of  all  in  politics.  Here  he  is  in 
sharpest  contrast  to  his  radicalism  in  theology.  A 
man  without  land,  he  maintained,  had  no  more  right 
to  have  a  share  in  government  than  a  clerk  had  the 
right  to  manage  his  employer's  business.  But  none 
the  less,  Voltaire  must  be  credited  with  having  done 
more  than  any  other  man  of  his  day  to  destroy  the 
intellectual  inertia  in  France  that  made  abuse  possible. 
If  the  Reformation  had  its  Erasmus  as  well  as  its 
Luther,  so  the  Revolution  had  its  Voltaire  as  well  as 
-its  Mirabeau. 

But  Voltaire  was  to  be  outdone  as  the  destroyer 
of  the  bases  of  ecclesiastical  and  political  authority. 
In  1727  Ephraim  Chambers  published,  in  England,  the 
first  genuine  encyclopedia,  and  Denis  Diderot  was 
employed  to  edit  the  French  translation  of  the  work.* 
Diderot  was  already  famous  in  the  literary  world, 
both  for  his  brilliant  falsifications  and  for  his  literary 
style,  and  in  undertaking  the  task  he  was  not  content 
merely  to  reproduce  the  English  work.  Associating 
with  himself  as  a  co-worker  D*Alembert,and  enlisting 
the  aid  of  nearly  every  literary  man  in  France,  he  set 


'On  the  Encyclopedists,  see  Morley,  Diderot  and  the  Encyclopedists; 
Lowell,  Eve  of  French  Revolution,  chs.  16,  17;  Taine,  Ancient  Regime,  216- 
221;  Levy-Bruhl,  History  0/ Modern  Philosophy  in  France,  ch.  7. 


62  The  French  Revolution 

about  the  enormous  task  of  issuing  a  work  that,  in 
his  own  words,  should  "bring  together  all  that  had 
been  discovered  in  science,  what  was  known  of  the 
productions  of  the  globe,  the  details  of  the  arts  which 
men  have  invented,  the  principles  of  morals,  those  of 
legislation,  the  laws  which  govern  society,  the  meta- 
physics of  language  and  the  rules  of  grammar,  the 
analysis  of  our  faculties,  and  even  the  history  of  our 
opinions."  The  first  volume  appeared  in  1751,  and 
the  second  in  January,  1752.  A  month  later  the  work 
was  suppressed  by  the  Council  as  dangerous  to  royal 
authority  and  religion.  None  the  less,  the  publication 
was  continued,  until  in  1757  the  work  had  reached 
the  end  of  the  letter  G.  Then,  because  of  a  most 
radical  book  of  Helvetius,  one  of  the  leading  Ency- 
clopedists, the  storm  broke  out  again,  and  it  was  not 
until  1765  that  the  remaining  volumes  were  delivered 
to  subscribers.' 
O  The  philosophical  opinions  contained  in  the  Ency- 
^  clopedia  itself  are  by  no  means  conservative,  as  its 
history  may  very  well  suggest,  but  it  gave  its  name 
to  the  group  of  scholars  and  philosophers  most  inti- 
mately concerned  in  its  production,  and  the  philo- 
sophical and  political  opinions  expressed  in  other 
works  of  these  Encyclopedists  were  radical  in  the 
extreme.  In  religion  they  did  not  stop  with  the  deism 
of  Voltaire,  plead  with  them  though  he  might,  but 
they  attacked  not  only  Christianity,  but  immortality 
and  God  as  well.  If,  according  to  Voltaire,  God 
wound  up  the  universe  like  a  clock,  and  then  from 

'In  1772,  eleven  volumes  of  plates  appeared;  in  1776,  four  supplementary 
volumes  of  text;  in  1777,  a  supplementary  volume  of  plates;  in  1780,  a  table 
of  contents  in  two  volumes.    The  work  passed  through  many  editions. 


Intellectual  Emancipation  63 

unknown  space  watched  it  go,  according  to  Diderot, 
D'Alembert,  Helvetius,  Holbach,  and  their  confreres 
there  never  was  any  God,  and  the  universe  wound 
up  itself.  In  politics  they  were  quite  as  extreme. 
As  for  morality,  Diderot  will  have  none  of  such  con- 
ventions as  marriage,  and  champions  the  most  extreme 
of  free-love  doctrines.  He  finds  in  the  "natural,"  the 
uncivilized  man  the  ideal  being,  and  believes  that  he 
continues  to  live  in  every  person.  To  give  this 
"natural  man"  free  scope  was  the  ideal  of  the  Encyclo- 
pedist school.  Government  was  "a  mere  handful  of 
knaves"  who  impose  their  yoke  upon  men.  "We 
see,"  they  said,  "on  the  face  of  the  globe  only  inca- 
pable, unjust  sovereigns,  enervated  by  luxury,  cor- 
rupted by  flattery,  depraved  through  unpunished 
license,  and  without  talent,  morals,  or  good  qualities." 

And  all  this  philosophical  madness  was  set  forth 
with  such  a  wealth  of  learning  and  such  a  delightful 
self-assurance  that  the  philosophers  of  France  and  the 
brillant  talkers  of  the  salons  were  soon  atheists  and 
anarchists  of  the  most  fashionable  sort. 

This  doctrine  of  the  "natural  man"  brings  us  face 

to  face  with  a  character  of  most  contradictory  traits, 

but  of  immense  importance,  Jean  Jacques  Rousseau.' 

J"  •    Rousseau   was  born    in    Geneva,    June    28,    1712. 

His  father  was  a  man  of  little  kindness,  and  when  his 

•The  literature  upon  Rousseau  is  voluminous.  The  best  in  French  is 
by  Saint  Marc  Girardin  and  the  best  in  English  by  Morley.  Lowell,  Eve  of 
the  French  Revolution,  contains  two  admirable  chapters,  18,  19;  McCarthy, 
French  Revolution,  I,  ch.  5,  contains  much  interesting  material.  His  gen- 
eral philosophy  of  history  is  well  treated  in  Flint,  Philosophy  of  History, 
305-314;  his  political  views,  by  Ritchie,  Natural  Rights,  ch.  3,  as  well  as  by 
most  writers  on  politics.  See,  tor  instance,  Woolsey,  Political  Science,  1; 
Schlosser,  History  of  the  Eighteenth  Century,  1,285-314.  A  good  English 
translation  of  the  Contrat  Social  is  that  by  Tozer  (1895).  See  further, 
Brunetiere,  History  of  French  Literature,  ch.~3;  Levy-Brunl, ^|j/(7ry  of  Mod' 
em  Philosophy  in  France,  ch.  8. 


64  The  French  Revolution 

son  was  but  a  boy  deserted  him  after  having  bound 
him  over  to  a  cruel  master.  Rousseau  fled  from  the 
abuse  to  which  he  was  subjected,  and  after  a  variety 
of  vicissitudes  in  low  life,  all  of  which  he  tells  with 
sentimental  frankness  in  his  Confessions^  he  finally 
became  an  inmate  of  the  house  of  a  lady  of  rather 
accommodating  morals,  who  was  to  play  no  small 
role  in  his  life,  Madame  de  Warens.  After  ten  or 
a  dozen  years,  being  unable  to  endure  the  presence 
of  a  rival  lover  in  the  singular  family  circle,  Rousseau 
went  to  Paris.  There,  now  a  man  of  thirty,  he  found 
the  back  doors — so  to  speak — of  the  literary  world 
open  to  him,  though  he  produced  little  or  nothing  for 
several  years.  In  the  meantime  he  copied  music  and 
collected  plants  for  botanists,  and  thus  supported  him- 
self and  an  illiterate  maidservant,  Therese  Levasseur, 
by  whom  he  had  five  children,  each  of  whom  he 
promptly  sent  to  the  foundling  asylum.'  When 
thirty-seven  years  of  age,  he  tells  us  in  the  Confes- 
sions^^ he  lay  down  one  hot  day  under  a  tree  and  hap- 
pened to  read  in  a  newspaper  that  the  Academy  of 
Dijon  offered  a  prize  for  the  best  essay  upon  the 
question,  "Whether  the  Progress  of  the  Arts  and  Sci- 
ences has  tended  to  corrupt  or  improve  morals?" 
Whereupon  he  wept  for  half  an  hour,  then  went  home, 
wrote  an  essay  to  establish  the  negative  answer,  won 
the  prize — and  the  *' Gospel  of  Jean  Jacques"  had 
been  born!  Civilization  he  knew  to  be  a  curse,  and 
'^the  natural  man  the  ideal  of  life. 

•It  was  characteristic  of  Rousseau  to  make  a  sentimental  reference  to 
this  fact  in  the  first  book  of  Entile.  He  apparently  thought  that  he  had  not 
sufficient  courage  or  ability  to  give  practically  that  education  the  theory  of 
which  he  described  with  so  much  charm.  See  further,  Morley,  Rousseau.,  1, 
119-129. 

'Part  ii,  bk.  8. 


Intellectual  Emancipation  65 

It  was  nothing  new.  Philosophers  for  hundreds 
of  years  had  taught  the  beauty  of  nature  and  the 
natural  man;  but  Rousseau  made  the  teaching  dyna- 
mic in  all  departments  of  social  life. 

The  works  with  which  he  accomplished  this  end 
were  On  the  I?iequality  among  Men^  published  in  1753; 
the  Neiv  Helo'ise^  published  in  1759;  the  Social  Con- 
tract^ published  in  1761;  and  Emile,  in  1762.  It  is 
hard  to  systematize  their  teachings,  so  miscellaneous 
and  often — even  in  the  case  of  his  teaching  as  to 
civilization  itself — so  conflicting  are  they.  There  is 
practically  nothing  in  the  whole  range  of  human 
experience  upon  which  he  does  not  give  advice. 
Gardens,  babies  with  colic,  music,  property,  morals, 
swaddling-clothes,  the  proper  shade-trees,  illicit  love, 
music,  God,  nursing  mothers,  all  alike  are  considered. 
But  back  of  the  rambling  discussions  of  his  undoubted 
genius  we  can  discover  one  fundamental  passion — to 
rationalize  the  condition  of  humanity;  to  break  down 
its  artificial  civilization,  its  unjust  governments,  and  to 
turn  men  back  to  nature.  Now  this  is  something  more 
than  the  negation  of  Voltaire  and  the  Encyclopedists. 
Rousseau  was  not  an  iconoclast;  his  temper  of  mind 
was  intensely  constructive.  And  what  is  more,  he  was 
in  earnest;  and  by  his  insistent  cry  of  "Back  to 
Nature!"  he  made  a  new  era. 

Just  v/hat  Rousseau  meant  by  Nature  and  the 
natural  man  is  somewhat  hard  to  say.  Although  he 
idealizes  the  American  Indians,  he  distinctly  says  that 
the  "natural"  condition  never  existed  on  the  earth  ;^ 
and  even  if  this  be  a  purely  formal  concession  to  an 

*In  bis  essajr  On  the  Inequality  among-  Men. 


66  The  French  Revolution 

orthodox  censor  of  the  press,  he  knows  nothing  about 
primitive  men  to  justify  the  ideal.  In  fact,  all  his 
"natural"  men  are  pure  imaginations — first  cousins  to 
the  ''economic"  men  of  political  economy.  Yet  this 
fact  made  no  difference  in  the  influence  of  his  writ- 
ings.    Real  or  unreal,  back  to  nature  men  tried  to  go. 

In  some  directions  the  cry  led  to  rational  improve- 
ment. Rousseau  became  the  founder  of  a  sort  of  cult 
among  the  fashionable  and  intellectual  classes.  His 
JVew  Hdo'ise^  for  instance,  could  not  be  bought,  so 
great  was  the  demand,  and  each  volume  was  let  out 
at  twelve  sous  an  hour.  Women  of  fashion  sat  up  all 
night  to  read  it.  And  it  was  more  than  a  mere  dissi- 
pation ;  it  all  but  remade  social  ideals.  Mothers  who 
had  forgotten  they  had  babies  began  to  nurse  them; 
boys  and  girls  who  had  been  laced  and  powdered  and 
taught  gallantry  ran  out  to  play.  Frenchmen  came 
to  love  natural  landscapes,  and  to  grow  suspicious  of 
their  beautifully  regular  gardens  with  their  trees  cut 
into  impossible  shapes.  The  world  of  fashion,  even, 
liked  to  play  at  being  au  nature!^  and  the  queen  herself 
had  little  farmhouses  built  in  the  great  park  of  Ver- 
sailles, and  there,  in  the  very  same  marble-lined  dairy 
of  Petit  Trianon  which  we  visit  to-day,  she  made  but- 
ter and  made  believe  she  was  a  farmer's  wife.  Louis, 
too,  since  all  men  ought  to  learn  a  trade  against  a 
coming  revolution,^  practiced  locksmithing,  and  loved 
to  make  strong-boxes — one  of  which  was  to  bring  him 
his  death  a  few  years  later,  when  natural  rights  were 
being  enjoyed.  To  this  day  education  feels  the  influ- 
ence of  Rousseau's  educational  insight,  for  Pestalozzi 

^Emile,  bk.  iii. 


Intellectual  Emancipation  67 

was  his  pedagogical  son,  and  every  mother  who  sends 
her  child  to  a  kindergarten  is  all  unwittingly  a  fellow- 
scholar  with  Froebel  in  the  school  of  Emile} 
^  But  even  more  influential  and  radical  was  the 
political  philosophy  of  Rousseau.  Utterly  ignorant 
of  the  facts  given  modern  scholars  by  anthropology 
and  comparative  politics,  in  his  political  theories 
Rousseau  was  wholly  at  the  mercy  of  classical 
antiquity  and  a  priori  theory.  Never  having  seen 
a  "natural"  man,  he  constructed  him  as  he  saw  fit. 
And  the  result  was  a  savage  who  was  also  a  saint,  for 
*'coming  from  the  hand  of  the  Author  of  all  things, 
everything  is  good.  "^  His  saintliness  indeed  van- 
ished, but  only  because  he  had  become  less  a  savage 
and  had  devised  private  property  in  land.  Civiliza- 
tion was,  therefore,  a  curse,  and  the  wise  man's 
ambition  would  be  to  free  himself  from  its  destructive 
influences. 

IS  This  in  the  two  Dijon  essays.  In  the  Social 
Contract  he  quite  abandons  this  position,  leaves  his 
savages  enjoying  the  thin  air  of  theory,  and  seeks 
with  sober  sense  to  discover  the  real  basis  upon 
which  the  modern  state  may  safely  rest.  His  search 
is  no  longer  for  a  ''natural  man,"  but  for  practicable 
liberty  and  equality — the  two  virtues  most  promi- 
nent by  their  absence  in  the  France  of  his  day.  Nor 
does  he  any  longer  regard  private  property  in  land  as 
evil;  it  is  rather  assumed  as  a  fundamental  fact  in 
society.     Even  his  equality  is  equality  before  the  law. 

'The  New  Helotse  so  affected  Thi^bault  {Memoirs,  I,  37)  that  when  he 
reached  St.  Preux's  last  letter,  he  was  "no  longer  weeping,  but  shrieking 
and  howling  like  a  wild  animal."  He  dared  not  read  any  more  of  the  book 
lor  a  week,  and  then  only  a  half  or  quarter  of  a  page  at  a  sitting. 

^Emile,  bk.  i. 


68  The  French  Revolution 

But  one  thing  he  still  holds:  "Man  is  born  free,  and 
everywhere  he  is  in  chains."  Freedom  and  equality 
were,  he  held,  to  be  gained  by  the  recognition  of  the — 
purely  imaginary — fact  that  the  state  is  the  outcome 
of  a  compact  between  men,  in  which  each  "places 
in  common  his  person  and  his  whole  power  under  the 
supreme  direction  of  the  general  will."  This  cor- 
porate body  thus  formed  constituted  the  true  sover- 
eign. Each  citizen  is  a  member  of  the  sovereign. 
The  will  of  this  sovereign  people  is  not  only  absolute, 
it  is,  though  not  always  wise,  always  right.  It  there- 
fore must  constitute  the  law,  and  if  it  allowed  the 
king  to  reign,  it  would  be  only  that  he  might  prevent 
the  clashing  of  individual  interests.  This  is  almost 
the  only  concession  Rousseau  makes  to  the  actual 
facts  of  political  history. 

When  he  passes  on  to  carry  out  this  general  polit- 
ical conception  into  actual  life,  his  thought  of  neces- 
sity grew  thoroughly  a  priori.  "What  is  the  govern- 
ment?" he  asks.  "An  intermediate  body  established 
between  the  subjects  and  the  sovereign  for  their 
mutual  correspondence,  charged  with  the  execution 
of  the  laws  and  with  the  maintenance  of  liberty,  both 
civic  and  political."  ^  As  the  sovereign  and  the  sub- 
jects would  be,  according  to  his  philosophy,  the 
same  people,  government  cannot  be  a  distinct  polit- 
ical entity.  It  is  at  this  point  the  revolutionary  impli- 
cation is  unavoidable.  Strictly  speaking,  Rousseau 
recognizes  no  contract  between  subjects  and  rulers. 
The  latter  are  simply  organs  of  the  people  itself, 
and  may  be  dismissed  at  any  moment.     "It  is  con- 

^Social  Contract,  bk.  iii,  ch.  i. 


Intellectual  Emancipation  69 

trary, "  says  Rousseau,  *'to  the  nature  of  the  body 
politic  for  the  sovereign  to  impose  upon  itself  a  law 
which  it  can  never  change."  Therefore  —  though 
Rousseau  hardly  dares  put  it  quite  so  distinctly — 
therefore,  a  sovereign  people  may  depose  its  servant 
king. 

But  it  must  be  remembered  that  Rousseau  cared 
nothing  for  what  we  call  a  republic.  He  seems  even 
sometimes  to  prefer  an  elective  aristocracy.  But 
such  an  aristocracy  would  be  only  the  servants  of  the 
people.  Representative  government  he  would  not 
have;  meetings  should  be  held  frequently,  in  which 
every  citizen  should  vote  on  every  question,  for  the 
"general  will"  alone  is  right.^  Further,  by  pushing 
his  theory  of  the  infallibility  of  majorities  and  the 
subsequent  subjection  of  the  individual  to  the  com- 
munity, Rousseau  at  the  same  time  that  he  preached 
this  absolute  democracy,  preached  —  although  he 
denied  it  —  a  democratic  despotism.  "As  nature 
gives  each  man,"  says  he,  "absolute  power  over  his 
own  limbs,  so  the  social  contract  gives  the  body 
politic  absolute  power  over  its  members  and  makes  it 
the  master  of  their  possessions."  There  are  to  be, 
according  to  Rousseau,  no  checks  upon  this  sovereign 
people  except  compulsory  religion.  The  sovereign 
people  should  banish  all  those  who  say  there  is  no 
salvation  outside  the  church,  and  all  those  who  say 
there  is  no  God. 

In  the  light  of  modern  political  history  it  is  not 
difficult  to  see  the  weakness  in  this  theory  of  Rous- 

^Probably  Rousseau  was  influenced  in  this  by  his  experience  with  the 
city  democracies  of  Switzerland. 


) 


-rf 


70  The  French  Revolution 

seau.  There  never  was  any  such  compact  between 
men,  and  civilization  is  not  a  curse,  but  a  perpetua- 
tion of  what  in  the  main  must  be  regarded  as  bless- 
ings. Popular  sovereignty  as  he  conceived  of  it  is 
a  chimera  and  a  seductive  fallacy.  His  demand  that 
all  citizens  should  take  part  in  all  deliberations  would 
result  either,  as  Voltaire  prophesied,  in  anarchy,  or 
as  the  Revolution  demonstrated,  in  the  tyranny  of 
the  mob  and  the  club.  His  disregard  of  minorities 
and  his  relentless  subjection  of  the  individual  to  the 
sovereign  is  not  liberty.  Indeed,  his  entire  philos- 
ophy logically  would  end  not  in  liberty,  but  in  equal- 
ity under  a  new  sort  of  despotism.  But  after  all  this 
is  admitted,  there  remains  one  magnificent  thought — 
the  rationality  of  society.     And   a    rational    society 

/ould  be  trusted  to  govern  itself. 
For  a  country  in  the  condition  of  France  this  con- 
ception, if  once  universally  joined  with  social  discon- 
tent, meant  reform  or  revolution.  That  he  succeeded 
in  getting  this  great  principle  diffused  throughout 
France,  and  indeed  in  the  works  of  others  throughout 
the  world,  gave  his  great  significance  to  Rousseau. 
But  he  has  yet  a  more  specific  importance.  Not  only 
was  he  a  philosophical  leaven,  but  to  many  he  was  an 
all  but  inspired  prophet.  Men  tried  to  put  his  entire 
political  gospel  into  operation — and  its  evangelists 
were  Robespierre  and  St.  Just,  and  its  millenium  was 
he  Terror. 

One  thing  more,  however,  must  be  said.  This 
great  intellectual  activity  is  not  to  be  interpreted  as 
arguing  intellectual  freedom  in  France.  Madame  de 
Stael  was  correct  when  she  declared  that  the  liberty 


Intellectual  Emancipation  71 

of  thought  that  characterizes  the  last  days  of  an 
absolutism  are  evidence  not  of  tolerance,  but  of 
weakness.  In  nothing  was  this  weakness  more  ap- 
parent than  in  the  attempts  made  to  limit  the  free- 
dom of  the  press.  Few  works  of  any  importance 
failed  to  bring  their  authors  into  trouble.  "An 
author  or  a  bookseller  was  forced  to  be  as  careful  as 
a  kidnaper  of  coolies  or  the  captain  of  a  slaver  would 
be  in  our  own  time.  He  had  to  steer  clear  of  the 
court,  of  the  parliament,  of  Jansenists,  of  Jesuits,  of 
the  mistresses  of  the  king  and  the  minister,  of  the 
friends  of  the  mistresses,  and  above  all,  of  that  organ- 
ized hierarchy  of  ignorance  and  oppression  in  all 
times  and  places  when  they  raise  their  masked  heads — 
the  bishops  and  ecclesiastics  of  every  sort  and  con- 
dition."  ^  The  Parlement  of  Paris  and  the  other  sov- 
ereign courts,  the  court  of  the  Chatelet,  even  an 
ordinary  tribunal  of  justice,  had  the  right  to  burn 
publicly  any  writing  judged  to  be  contrary  to  religion, 
morals,  or  the  state,  and  nearly  every  great  work  of 
the  eighteenth  century  shared  this  fate.^  The  arrest 
of  the  authors,  printers,  dealers,  as  well  as  the  con- 
fiscation of  all  discoverable  copies,  followed  whenever 
possible,^  and  there  were  few  famous  French  authors 
in  the  century  who  did  not  taste  the  bitterness  of 
the  Bastile  or  of  exile.  It  is  this  fact  that  gives  a  cer- 
tain moral  worth  to  even  the  worst  of  the  literature  of 

'Morley,  Rousseau,  II,  56;  see  also  his  Diderot,  ch.  6. 

'It  is  said,  however,  that  the  hangman  sometimes  threw  waste-paper 
into  the  lire  instead  ot  the  books,  and  that  these  latter  were  afterward 
found  in  the  library  of  the  judge! 

'For  details,  see  Monin,  f  Etat  de  Paris  en  lySq,  467-478;  Rocquain, 
V Esprit  revolutionnaire  avant  la  Revolution,  491-535,  gives  a  list  of  works 
condemned  from  1715-1789. 


ya  The  French  Revolution 

the  period.  If  men  wrote  recklessly,  they  also  wrote 
bravely.  In  the  case  of  the  philosophers  this  must 
excuse  much  exaggerated  misunderstanding  of  religion 
and  morals.  They  were  in  earnest  and  they  were  in 
danger,  and  in  some  strange  way  one  is  thus  forced 
to  give  Voltaire  and  Diderot,  D'Alembert  and  Rous- 
seau some  of  the  credit  we  give  the  martyrs  of  ^the 
church  they  attacked. 

To  trace  the  process  by  which  this  struggle  against 
intellectual  tyranny  and  this  extravagant  love  for 
abstract  politics  became  united  with  economic  and, 
political  discontent,  and  so  produced  a  new  Frenchj 
spirit,  is  the  work  of  another  chapter. 

General  References  to  English  Literature.— Oi 
the  Old  Regime,  the  most  briUiant  work  is  that  of  Taine,  Th{ 
Ancient  R^gi?ne,  but  there  are  others  of  great  value:  D< 
Tocqueville,  France  before  the  Revohttion  of  lySg ;  Arthui 
Young,  Travels  in  France  during  the  Years  ijSy-g ;  Lowell, 
The  Eve  of  the  French  Revolution  ;  Dabney,  The  Causes  of 
the  French  Revolution  ;  Kingsley,  The  Ancient  Regime  ;  Roc- 
quain,  The  Revolutio?iary  Spirit.  Briefer  accounts  will  be 
found  in  Louis  Blanc,  History  of  the  French  Revolution,  Intro- 
duction; Allison,  History  of  Europe,  X,  First  Series,  I,  1-60; 
Buckle,  History  of  Civilization,  I,  chs.  8-14;  McCarthy,  French 
Revolution,  I,  chs.  1-14;  Watson,  The  Story  of  France,  I, 
chs.  37-39. 

Among  memoirs,  those  of  Madame  Campan  and  of  Baron 
Besenval  are  especially  full  of  descriptions  of  the  life  at  Ver- 
sailles. '\\^&\i\ogxdi^\iy  oi  Marie  Antoinette,  by  Saint-Amand, 
is  interesting,  but  hardly  unprejudiced.  The  same  can  be  said 
of  Mason,  The  Women  of  the  French  Salons.  Much  valuable 
historical  material  is  also  contained  in  the  delightful  novel  of 
Erckmann-Chatrian,  The  States  General,  and  to  a  less  degree 
\\\  the  stories  of  Dumas.  ' 


PART   II 

THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  THE    REVOLUTION 


CHAPTER    VI 

I      THE   DEVELOPMENT   OF   THE   REVOLUTIONARY 
r  SPIRIT    UNDER    LOUIS    XV. 

I.  Revolutions  the  Result  of  Spiritual  Forces.  IL  The  Struggle 
for  Religious  Freedom.  IIL  The  Parlement  of  Paris  and 
Its  Struggle  with  Louis  XV.  over  the  Bull  Untgenitus. 
IV.  The  Crisis  of  1753-4.  V.  The  New  Influence  of  Phi- 
losophy. VI.  The  Coup  d'Etatoi  1771.  VII.  The  Liberal 
Spirit  in  the  Various  Classes  of  France:  i.  The  Nobles; 
2.  The  Clergy;  3.  The  Masses  of  the  City  and  the  Provin- 
cials. VIII.  The  Moral  Weakness  of  the  New  Spirit. 
IX.   Its  Universality. 

J —  I  The  difference  between  a  revolt  and  a  revolution 
in  the  last  analysis  is  a  question  of  success.  If  a 
revolt  is  unable  to  destroy  existing  constitutional 
forms,  it  is  a  political  crime,  and  its  leaders  are  pun- 
ished as  traitors.  If,  however,  it  is  able  to  bring 
about  constitutional  change,  it  becomes  itself  master 
of  the  state  and  its  sympathizers  become  the  govern- 
ment. Then  it  is  properly  called  a  revolution.* 
A  comparison  of  pre-revolutionary  epochs,  however, 
makes  this  statement  mean  either  too  much  or  too 

'The  most  important  work  upon  this  subject  is,  perhaps.  Lorabroso,  La 
Crime  politique  et  la  Revolution,  although  few  would  probably  assent  to 
some  of  the  author's  statements  as  to  the  physical  conditions  most  potent  in 
inducing  social  upheavals. 

73 


74  The  French  Revolution 

little.  The  success  of  any  uprising  against  an  exist- 
ing government  which  is  of  enough  significance  to 
warrant  being  called  a  revolution  is  something  more 
than  a  triumph  of  mere  physical  force.  It  is  an  evi- 
dence of  life,  a  spiritual  movement — the  result  of  a 
struggle  of  men  with  ideals  against  men  with  legalized 
privileges.  To  understand  it  one  must  look  into  the 
heart  of  an  entire  people  as  well  as  upon  the  deeds  of 
some  few  desperate  men.  And  therefore  one  must 
expect  to  find  that  dreams  of  betterment  and  disgust 
at  abuses  which  leap  forth  at  some  moment  to  remake 
constitutions  are  the  children  of  long  pedigrees.  A 
revolution  no  more  than  a  state  is  born  in  a  day, 
and  the  Revolution  in  France  was  no  more  the  out- 
growth of  sudden  passion  than  it  was  of  mere  misery. 
It  was  the  product  of  a  century's  discontent  rational- 
ized and  made  constructive  by  philosophy. 
^^fT  As  regards  pnlitif|^l  j;l,i§it;pnt<^"*^i  the  development  of 
_^^JL<the  revolutionary  spirit  in  France  may  be  traced  fro^ 
the  days  of  the  Regency,  but  even  then  its  chief  ele- 
me'nt  wasa  heritage  from  the  last  bigoted  days  of  Louis 
XIV^  The  germ  of  revolution  was  the  purely  ecclj^- 
' '  Squeal  struggle  for  religious  liberty  between  two  gar- 
ties  oTTTie"  RomanCFurch,  the  Ultramontanes  and 
the  Jansehi'sts.  Into  the  details  of  this  controversy 
as  it  raged  over  the  questions  of  papal  infallibility^ 
Augustinianism,  Pelagianism,  divine  grace,  and 
righteousness  of  works,  it  is  quite  unnecessary  to 
enter.  But  it  is  indispensable  to  note  that  in  1713 
the  Jesuits  procured  from  Pope  Clement  XI.  the  bull 
Unigenitus^  by  which  one  hundred  and  one  of  the 
Jansenist    positions    were  pronounced    heretical    and 


Development  of  the  Revolutionary  Spirit      75 

proscribed.  February  14,  17 14,  its  provisions  were 
registered  by  the  Parlement  of  Paris  as  a  law  of  the 
nation.  Church  and  state  grew  thus  united  in  oppo- 
sition to  free  thought.  Although  the  death  of  Louis 
XIV.  prevented  the  enforcement  of  the  new  law, 
throughout  the  ministry  of  Fleury  persistent  efforts 
were^  made  to  crush  the  Jaii^ehists.'bythe  use  of  the 
powers  of  the  state,  and  the  "constitution"  of  the 
bull  became  the  issue  of  a  generation's  constitutional 
struggles.  In  1730  Fleury  forced  through  the  Parle- 
ment or  High  Court  of  Paris  a  law  making  it  obligatory 
upon  all  ecclesiastics  to  accept  the  bull.'  A  few  of 
the  higher  clergy,  many  of  the  lower  clergy,  the 
magistrates,  the  bourgeoisie^  the  people  at  large,  were 
at  one  in  their  hostility  to  the  high-handed  measures 
of  the  court.  The  question  became  political.  The 
Parlement  of  Paris  resisted  to  the  very  limit  of  obedi- 
ence, but  to  no  purpose.  Its  president  on  wishing  to 
speak  was  told  by  the  king  to  keep  quiet — '' Taisez- 
vous.''  Several  members  of  the  Parlement  were 
exiled,  and  in  1732  its  powers  were  distinctly  de- 
creased. The  people  of  Paris,  as  well  as  of  all  France, 
who — not  quite  correctly — saw  in  the  Parlement  the 
representative  of  the  nation,  became  deeply  involved 
in  the  struggle,  now  no  longer  a  question  of  creed, 
but  of  the  powers  of  Parlement,  the  one  means  of 
checking  absolutism. 

*The  Parlements  were  judicial,  not  legislative,  bodies.  The  importance 
of  the  Parlement  of  Paris  was  great,  since  no  decree  of  the  king  could  be- 
come a  law  until  the  Parlement  had  tormally  registered  it.  Its  only  power 
of  resistance  lay  in  refusal  to  register,  but  even  in  such  a  case  the  king  could 
force  it  to  do  his  will  or  exile  it  if  it  still  was  disobedient.  On  the  Parle- 
ments, see  Desmazes,  Le  Parlement  de  Paris ;  Baistard  d'Estang,  Les  Parle- 
ments de  France.  A  summary  of  the  history  of  the  Parlement  of  Paris  is  in 
Stephens.  French  Revolution^  I,  4,  5. 


76  The  French  Revolution 

The  succession  of  wars  in  which  France  became 
involved  during  the  second  quarter  of  the  eighteenth 
century  quieted  domestic  disputes,  but  at  each  lull  in 
the  military  storm  the  effort  of  Fleury  to  crush  the 
Jansenist  party  was  renewed,  but  always  with  an 
increase  of  opposition  on  the  part  of  the  Parlement 
of  Paris.  The  reverses  of  the  French  arms  in  the 
wars  of  the  Austrian  succession  were  not  sufficient  to 
arouse  Louis  XV.  to  the  necessity  of  political  reform, 
and  the  state  remained  under  the  astonishing  leader- 
ship of  the  king's  mistresses  and  Cardinal  Fleury. 
Thought  grew  more  restramed,  and  in  iTJa*  an  orSer 
of  the  Council  destroyed  the  liberty  of  the^ress  and 
made  it  a  crime  to  have  in  otie^s  possession  books 
**injurious  to  good  morals." 

The  death  of  Fleury  in  1743,  and  the  consequent 
assumption  of  the  responsibilities  of  royalty  by  Louis 
XV.,  brought  little  relief.  War  continued,  and  the 
consequent  drafting  of  troops  furnished  the  occasion 
of  seditious  outbreaks  in  the  workingmen's  faubourg 
(or  ward)  in  Paris,  ^t.  Antoine,  which  was  later  to 
be  so  puissant  in  affairs  of  state.  D'Argenson  wrote 
in  1743,  "Revolution  is  certain  in  the  state."  But 
he  was  mistaken.  France  had  not  yet  been  divorced 
from  a  regard  for  ancient  authorities  or  concentrated 
on  elemental  justice.  Discontent  in  itself  is  inca- 
pable of  producing  a  revolution,  and  when  in  the 
next  year  Louis  XV.  announced  that  he  would  be 
at  once  a  better  king  and  a  better  man,  all  evidences 
of  discontent  were  lost  in  national  rejoicing.  Ultra- 
montanism  in  the  Council  was  repressed,  a  champion 
of  toleration,  D'Argenson,  was  put  in  charge  of  for- 


t 


Development  of  the  Revolutionary  Spirit      77 

eign  affairs.  Literature,  instead  of  being  the  object 
of  government  suspicion,  was  befriended;  and  even 
Voltaire,  in  1746,  was  authorized  by  Louis  XV.  to 
present  himself  as  a  candidate  for  membership  in  the 
Academy.  The  church  at  the  same  time  ceased  from 
religious  persecution. 

But  the  quiet  was  of  but  short  duration,  and  abso- 
lutism again  soon  exerted  itself  in  restrictions.  The 
Parlement  was  told  that  the  bull  Unigenitus  contained 
"the  law  of  church  and  state,"  and  a  vote  of  Parle- 
ment to  the  contrary  was  annulled  by  an  order  of  the 
Council  of  State.  The  continuance  of  war  not  only 
brought  desolation  to  the  nation,  but  new  taxes  were 
imperative.  Parlement,  as  far  as  it  dared,  remon- 
strated with  the  king,  but  to  no  purpose.  Popular 
discontent  grew  marked.  In  vain  the  government 
gave  great  fetes  to  the  people  at  the  establishment  of 
peace.  No  one  shouted  Vive  le  roil  and  the  crowd 
burned  one  of  the  triumphal  arches.  Peace  itself 
brought  new  complaints,  for  the  government  broke  its 
promises  of  remitting  certain  war  taxes. 

The  appearance  of  Montesquieu's  great  work  upon 
the  Spirit  of  the  Laws  drew  public  attention  to  funda- 
mental political  principles,  and  Parlement  after  Parle- 
ment refused  to  sanction  the  continued  collection  of  the 
war  tax  of  dixieme^  or  ten  per  cent.'  Government  not 
choosing  to  yield  all  at  once,  attempted  to  substitute 
a  tax  of  vingtienne,  or  five  per  cent.  The  Parlement 
of  Paris  at  first  refused  to  register  the  law,  but  later 
did  so,  though  entering  upon  their  records  the  state- 

'They  were  those  of  Bordeaux,  Aix,  Pau.  and  Toulouse.  It  is  to  be 
noticed  that  thus  early  the  provincial  Parlements  dare  oppose  the  royal  will. 


78  The  French  Revolution 

ment  that  they  did  so  only  at  "the  express  command 
of  the  king." 

Religious  persecution  broke  out  again  at  the  same 
time,  and  France  was  in  consequence  everywhere 
swept  by  fierce  hostility  to  the  Ultramontane  party. 
At  the  same  time  all  classes  united  in  open  criticism 
of  the  king's  life  and  administration.  Church  and 
state,  thus  united  in  disregard  of  the  rights  of  the 
people,  were  henceforth  to  be  equally  the  object  of 
attack.  Everywhere  there  was  agitation,  and  a 
crisis  was  reached  in  1752-54.  A  certain  Ultra- 
montane priest  had  refused  to  give  the  last  sacra- 
ment to  a  Jansenist  priest,  Le  Mere.  The  latter 
complained  to  the  Parlement  of  Paris,  That  body 
ordered  the  Ultramontane  to  perform  the  proper 
oflfices  to  the  dying  man.  The  Royal  Council 
promptly  annulled  the  decree,  and  said  it  would 
attend  to  the  matter  itself.  As  a  result,  Le  Mere  died 
without  the  sacraments.  Paris  was  thrown  into  the 
most  extravagant  excitement,  and  Parlement  ordered 
the  arrest  of  the  offending  priest.  The  king  annulled 
this  decree  as  well.  Parlement  replied  by  a  decree 
forbidding  the  clergy  to  enforce  the  decrees  of  the 
bull  Unigenitus  against  heretics.  The  Archbishop  of 
Paris  ordered  forty  hours'  prayer  "against  the  dangers 
threatening  the  faith,"  and  appealed  to  the  king. 
The  public  replied  with  numerous  pamphlets.  Parle- 
ment grew  increasingly  rebellious,  and  at  last,  on 
April  8,  1753,  refused  flatly,  under  penalty  of  incur- 
ring the  royal  disfavor,  to  register  certain  decrees 
enforcing  obedience  to  the  Unigenitus  constitution. 
And  thereupon,  April  9th,  it  was  exiled  to  Pontoise, 


Development  of  the  Revolutionary  Spirit      79 

and  later  to  Soissons.  Instantly  it  became  more  than 
ever  a  popular  idol.  Everywhere  were  heard  and  read, 
"Long  live  the  Parlement!  Death  to  the  king  and 
the  bishops!"  Opposition  on  the  part  of  the  pro- 
vincial Parlements  was  unified,  and  under  the  direc- 
tion of  the  exiled  Parlement  of  Paris  they  began  to 
solidify  a  universal  opposition  to  church  and  state. 
Had  the  influence  of  the  philosophers  been  as  great 
in  1754  as  in  1789,  it  is  difficult  to  see  why  the  Revo- 
lution should  not  have  then  broken  out.^ 

The  reason  that  the  revolution  did  not  break  out 
in  1754,  according  to  Rousseau,  was  the  extraor- 
dinary excitement  produced  by  his  book  upon  French 
music, ^  and  according  to  Grimm,  the  arrival  in  Paris 
of  the  Italian  actor  Manelli!  Possibly  each  did 
something  to  relieve  the  tension  of  the  Parisian 
mind,  but  the  real  explanation  is  something  very 
different:  The  government  became  alarmed,  and~ 
yielded.  Parlement  was  recalled;  the  Ultramontane 
party  was  defeated,  and  recalcitrant  archbishops  and 
bishops  were  in  turn  sent  into  exile.  It  was  a  revela- 
tion of  the  possibilities  of  persistent  and  united  oppo- 
sition which  France  could  not  easily  forget.  But  the 
national  rejoicing  was  short-lived.  Louis  XV.  was 
sadly  in  need  of  money,  and  made  concessions  again 

'D'Argenson,  writing'  in  May.  1753,  expressly  states  the  opposition  to  the 
religion  was  not  due  to  "the  English  philosophy,"  but  to  hatred  against  the 
priests.  In  June,  1754,  he  writes,  "The  revolution  is  more  to  be  feared  than 
ever.  If  it  is  to  come  to  Paris,  it  will  commence  by  the  killing  of  priests  in 
the  streets."  Koc(\\ia'm,  L^Esfirit  Revoluiioniiaire,  170,  179.  Rocquain  (180, 
181)  goes  on  to  show  th-e'  advantages  which  would  have  accrued  to  France 
had  the  revolution  come  at  this  time  rather  than  in  1789.  And  there  can  be 
little  doubt  that  the  generation  which  elapsed  between  the  two  crises  did 
much  to  bring  destructive  rather  than  reformatory  forces  to  the  front.  In 
addition,  Louis  XV.  would  never  have  been  the  vacillating  ruler  his  grandson 
proved  to  be. 

*  Confessions,  pt.  ii,  bk.  8. 


8o  The  French  Revolution 

to  the  clergy  in  return  for  a  promise  of  a  grant  of 
funds.  This  sudden  change  in  the  royal  policy  was 
probably  due  to  the  influence  of  Madame  de  Pompa- 
dour, who  by  this  time  was  the  most  influential  person 
in  France. 

In  December,  1756,  the  king  held  a ///  de  justice^ 
in  which  Parlement  was  forced  to  register  royal 
decrees  that  practically  annihilated  its  own  powers. 
All  the  excitement  of  two  years  previous  was  again  in 
evidence,  and  again  D'Argenson  feared  revolution. 
The  //■/  de  justice  seemed  to  some  '*the  last  sigh  of  the 
dying  royalty."  More  apprehensive  souls  thought 
that  *' Europe  was  threatened  by  a  sinister  revolu- 
tion." 

Again  superficial  judgments  showed  themselves 
false,  for  the  attempted  assassination  of  Louis  XV. 
by  the  wretched  Damien,  in  January,  1757,  led  the 
government  to  take  extreme  measures.  Members  of 
different  Parlements  were  banished,  and  even  thrown 
into  prison;  leaders  of  both  sides  of  the  warring 
theological  parties  were  also  banished;  troops  were 
made  ready,  and  a  new  law  was  promulgated  punish- 
ing with  death  the  publication  of  writings  danger- 
ous to  the  authority  of  church  or  state.  These 
severe  measures  restrained  popular  feeling,  but  it 
broke  out  with  renewed  bitterness  after  the  defeat 
of  the  French  at  Rosbach  (1757),  and  the  attempt  to 
levy  an  additional  tax  in  the  shape  of  a  "gift"  upon 
all  towns  and  villages  in  the  nation.  One  of  the 
numerous  placards  of  the  day  maintained  that  three 

'This  term  denotes  a  session  of  the  Parlement  held  by  the  king  in  per- 
son, in  which  all  debate  was  forbidden  and  the  Parlement  was  lorcea  to 
register  a  Itw  under  penalty  of  severe  punishment. 


Development  of  the  Revolutionary  Spirit      8i 

hundred  thousand   men,    under  a  leader,   were   ready 
to  take  arms  in  support  of  a  revolt. 
Vf  AJl   this  developing  spirit   of    revolt,  it  should  be 


recalled,  had  as  yet  been  practically  untouched  by 
philosophy.  So  far  is  it  from  being  true  that  Voltaire 
and  Rousseau  originated  the  Revolution.  But  discon- 
tent' is  neither  unifying  nor  constructive.  A  nation 
must  have  an  issue  and  an  ideal  if  it  is  to  be  regener- 
ated. It  is  therefore  of  the  first  importance  to  dis- 
cover that  just  at  this  time  the  gathering  opposition 
to  historical  authority  should  have  found  its  theoreti- 
cal justification  in  a  philosophy  at  once  destructive 
and  constructive.  Under  its  influence,  the  spirit  of 
discontent  entered  upon  a  new  stage — it  became 
truly  revolutionary.  It  now  had  those  universal 
watchwords  so  necessary  for  a  popular  movement; 
it  had  its  philosophical  weapons  with  which  to  attack 
church,  state,  and  privilege  alike;  every  year  it 
had  suggested  to  it  new  ideals  of  political  and  social 
reconstruction.  After  1765^  it  was  but  a  question 
of  time  before  the  results  of  this  new  spirit  should 
appear.  By  1771  the  government  was  in  despair. 
The  recalcitrant  Parlement  of  Paris,  supported  by 
popular  opinion  and  the  philosophy  of  the  salons, 
could  be  neither  cajoled  nor  threatened  into  doing 
the  king's  will.  The  church  could  give  no  aid, 
for  the  questions  now  under  discussion  had  ceased 
to  be  ecclesiastical,  and  were  purely  civil,  and  the 
Jesuits  had  been  suppressed  by  the  Pompadour.  At 
last,  January   20,    1771,  under  the  inspiration  of  the 

*It  is  worth  remembering  that  it  was  also  at  just  this  time  that  the 
.'American  colonies  entered  upon  that  course  ot  action  that  led  to  the  Ameri- 
can Revolution. 


82  The  French  Revolution 

prime  minister,  Maupeou,  Louis  XV.  executed  a  coup 
d'etat.  The  members  of  Parleraent  were  exiled,  their 
property  confiscated,  and  the  Parlement  itself  com- 
pletely suppressed.  Before  the  year  was  out  the  pro- 
vincial Parlements  were  also  suppressed  and  their 
functions  assumed  by  six  new  courts. 

It  would  be  historically  incorrect  to  think  of  the 
Parlement  of  Paris,  or  the  Parlements  of  other  sec- 
tions of  France,  as  composed  of  pure-minded  patriots. 
So  far  from  being  anything  like  the  English  Parlia- 
ment, they  had  no  true  legislative  powers.  Their 
members  belonged  to  the  privileged  classes,  and  wished 
nothing  less  than  reform.  As  corporate  bodies  they 
were  without  exception  corrupt  and  often  cruel. 
Their  members  purchased  their  positions,  and  used 
them  as  served  their  ends  best.  Their  very  opposition 
to  the  king  had  been  largely  inspired  by  their  deter- 
mination to  maintain  their  own  privileges.  But  corrupt 
as  it  was,  the  Parlement  of  Paris  in  withstanding  the 
king  had  become  the  mouthpiece  of  discontent.  Now 
that  it  was  abolished,  there  was  practically  no  body 
to  oppose  royal  encroachments.  So  long  as  Louis 
XV.  lived,  it  is  true,  resistance  was  reduced  to  riot- 
ings  and  pamphlets,  but  public  opinion  grew  daily 
more  determined  to  have  some  sort  of  expression  of 
the  national  wishes.  It  was  suggested  that  the  States 
General — the  one  national  body — should  be  recalled 
from  the  grave  to  which  Louis  XIII.  had  sent  it  in 
1614.  But  the  old  king  set  himself  fiercely  against  the 
proposal.  *'If  my  own  brother  were  to  make  the  sug- 
gestion to  me,"  he  said  once,  in  substance,  "I  would 
not  wait  twenty-four  hours  before  executing  him," 


Development  of  the  Revolutionary  Spirit      83 

and  he  allowed  his  minister  Maupeou  to  crush  every 
corporate  body  that  in  any  way  dared  oppose  the  royal 
will.  But  such  severity  could  not  endure,  and  among 
the  first  acts  of  Louis  XVI.  was  the  reinstatement  of 
the  suppressed  Parlements,  only  to  find  that  punish- 
ment had  but  increased  their  capacity  for  opposition 
—  in  his  reign,  unfortunately,  to  proposed  reforms 
rather  than  to  the  encroachments  of  the  sovereign. 

The  leaven  of  idealism  was  not  to  work  only  among 
hard-pressed  lawyers  and  judges.  The  great  enemy 
of  the  philosophers  during  the  last  days  of  Louis  XV. 
was  Siguier,  advocat  geniral^  and  his  apprehensions 
furnish  a  striking  testimony  to  the  extent  of  their 
influence.  '*The  philosophers,"  he  says,  "have  set 
themselves  up  as  teachers  of  the  human  race.  Liberty 
of  thought  is  their  cry,  and  this  cry  has  made  itself 
heard  from  one  end  of  the  world  to  the  other.  With 
one  hand  they  have  attempted  to  shake  the  throne; 
with  the  other  they  have  wished  to  overthrow  the 
altars.  Kingdoms  have  felt  their  ancient  foundations 
totter,  and  the  nations,  astonished  at  seeing  their 
principles  annihilated,  have  asked  by  what  fate  they 
had  become  so  different  from  themselves.  In  their 
numberless  writings  the  philosophers  have  spread 
abroad  the  poison  of  unbelief;  eloquence,  poetry,  his- 
tory, romance,  even  dictionaries  have  been  infected. 
Scarcely  have  their  writings  been  published  in 
the  capital,  when  they  spread  like  a  torrent  in  the 
provinces.  The  contagion  has  penetrated  into  the 
workshops,  and  even  into  the  huts  of  the  peasants."  ' 
^ff /«As  for  the  nobility,  it  is  noteworthy  that  there  were 

^Rocquain,  V Esprit  Revolutionnaire,  278. 


84  The  French  Revolution 

many  who  were  under  the  influence  of  the  ideals  of 
the  philosophers.  Especially  was  this  true  of  the  old 
aristocracy — that  "of  the  sword" — in  which  were 
numbered  men  like  de  La  Fayette,  d'Aiguillon,  de 
Noailles,  the  two  brothers  de  Lameth,  de  Montmo- 
rency, de  La  Rochefoucauld,  together  with  many  of 
the  younger  noblesse.  The  V^^/Vrj  which  were  pre- 
sented by  the  Second  Estate  in  1789  show  no  small 
influence  of  liberal  thought.  Thus  at  Paris  the  nobles 
direct  their  representatives  to  the  States  General  to 
see  to  it  that  the  new  body  draws  up  "an  explicit 
declaration  of  the  rights  which  belong  to  all  men."' 
The  nobles  of  Clermont  in  Beauvoisis,  Mantes,  and 
Menton  do  the  same.  The  nobility  of  the  bailliage  of 
Tours  formally  declared  that  they  were  "men  and 
citizens  before  being  nobles,"  and  declared  that  they 
would  resign  all  privileges  in  the  matter  of  taxation.  1 
To  the  meeting  of  the  electors  of  the  Third  Estate 
in  Berry,  the  Comte  de  Buzan^ois  declared,  "We  are 
all  brothers,  and  are  anxious  to  share  your  burdens." 
The  nobles  of  Rheims  petitioned  the  king  to  order 
the  demolition  of  the  Bastile. 

These  liberal  nobles,  however,  constituted  only 
a  hopeful  minority  of  their  order,  and  few  even  of 
them  were  accustomed  to  political  life,  and  were  thus 
quite  incapable  of  perceiving  the  practical  results  of  \ 
their  theories.  Philosophy  was  for  them,  as  has  been  ' 
said,  "confined  to  the  limits  of  speculation,  and  never 
seeking,  even  in  its  boldest  flights,  anything  beyond 
a  calm  intellectual  exercise."'*     The  only  exception 

»Cha8sin,  Cahiers,  1781),  II,  15. 

•Morellet,  Memoires,  I,  139;  quoted  by  Talne,  Ancient  Regime,  279,  n. 


Development  of  the  Revolutionary  Spirit     85 

of  importance  to  this  statement  lies  within  the  sphere 
of  sentiment.  Women  of  quality  dined  with  the 
grocer-woman  who  had  been  chiefly  instrumental  in 
bringing  about  the  release  of  Latude,  a  wretch  who^ 
had  been  kept  in  prison  thirty-five  years  for  attempt- 
ing-a  practical  joke  upon  Madame  de  Pompadour. 
La  Fayette  disobeyed  the  order  of  the  court,  bought 
a  frigate,  and  went  to  aid  the  colonies  of  America  in 
their  struggle  for  the  "natural  rights"  set  forth  in  the 
Declaration  of  Independence.  In  some  regions  the 
most  influential  men  defended  the  peasant  against 
the  tax-collector,  and  a  governor  of  one  province 
delivered  a  course  on  bread-making.  When  these 
enthusiasts  went  further  and  preached  doctrines  of 
natural  rights  to  the  masses,  results  could  not  fail 
to  be  revolutionary.  In  truth  the  theorists  of  the 
eighteenth  century  were  summoning  a  dangerous 
genius  when  they  undertook  to  inspire  restless,  igno- 
rant, ill-regulated  minds  with  dreams  of  liberty.  Vol- 
taire put  the  matter  to  the  Encyclopedists  distinctly: 
"Philosophize  between  yourselves  as  much  as  you 
please.  I  fancy  I  hear  dilettanti  giving  for  their  own 
pleasure  a  refined  music ;  but  take  good  care  not  to 
perform  this  concert  before  the  ignorant,  the  brutal, 
the  vulgar;  they  might  break  your  instruments  over 
your  heads."  It  was  this  same  sense  of  the  danger 
attending  the  destructive  philosophy  of  the  day  that 
led  to  Voltaire's  other  remark:  "Atheism  and  fanat- 
icism are  two  monsters  which  may  tear  society  to 
pieces."  But  neither  the  Encyclopedists  nor  these 
philanthropic  enemies  of  the  privileges  upon  which 
they  depended    for   their    incomes   saw   the  wisdom 


86  The  French  Revolution 

of  the  observation,  and  the  ferment  was  ever  the 
greater. 

^2  Among  the  clergy,  the  abused  curates  and  vicars, 
most  of  whom  were  Jansenist  in  sympathy,  shared 
pretty  generally  in  this  renaissance  of  liberal  senti- 
ments, and  among  the  higher  clergy,  strenuous  for 
their  rights  as  they  were,  there  were  some  who  were 
ready  to  assist  their  peasants  to  meet  and  overcome 
want.  The  Bishop  of  Castres  directed  his  curates  to 
see  to  it  that  potatoes  are  cultivated  among  their 
parishioners.  The  Archbishop  of  Paris  gave  a  for- 
tune to  the  hospital  of  the  Hdtel  Dieu.  But  the  lib- 
eral clergy  were  far  less  doctrinaire  in  their  chase 
after  natural  rights  than  were  the  liberals  of  other 
orders.  The  sense  of  need  growing  from  actual  con- 
tact with  the  poor,  as  well  as  a  practical  knowledge 
of  the  impossibility  of  educating  them  for  reform, 
seems  to  have  made  the  curates  less  enthusiastic  for 
change.  Ecclesiastics  as  a  class  have  never  been  very 
keen  after  novelties,  and  the  French  ecclesiastics  of 
1774-89  least  of  all. 

'^  Among  the  masses  the  same  ideals  were  rapidly 
spreading.  Discontent  might  well  be  permanent  in 
a  people  oppressed  Ijke  the  peasants  and  artisans  of 
France.  The  annals  of  the  time  are  full  of  violence, 
of  local  revolts,  riots,  and  protests.  Philosophical 
teachings  like  Rousseau's  found  men  waiting  to 
receive  them,  or  at  least  to  read  desirable  contents 
into  their  general  phrases.  "Popular  sovereignty" 
became  everywhere  the  possession  of  the  artisans  and 
the  masses  of  the  cities,  especially  of  Paris.  The 
peasants,  it  is  true,  could  not  have  fully  shared  in  the 


Development  of  the  Revolutionary  Spirit      87 

beautiful  dreams  of  philosophy,  but  they  began  to  feel 
that  their  discontent  was  being  reinforced,  and  perhaps 
even  quieted,  by  respectability.  A  poor  woman  in  the 
neighborhood  of  Metz,  in  July,  1789,  could  tell  Arthur 
Young  that  "something  was  to  be  done  by  some 
great  folk  for  such  poor  ones  as  she,  though  she  did 
hot  know  who  nor  how.  "^  At  the  best,  however, 
their  notions,  with  those  of  the  populace  of  Paris, 
could  have  been  but  crude.  Even  the  provincial  mid- 
dle class  struck  Arthur  Young  as  stupid.  Everybody 
he  found  talking,  but  heard  from  them — at  least  in 
Metz — not  one  word  for  which  he  "would  give 
a  straw."  "Take  the  mass  of  mankind,"  he  goes  on 
to  say,  "and  you  have  more  sense  in  half  an  hour  in 
England  than  in  half  a  year  in  France."^  But  there 
is  no  evidence  of  any  widespread  determination  on 
the  part  of  the  peasants  to  have  revenge.  They  were 
ready  to  poach  upon  their  lord's  preserves,  and  if 
need  be  to  kill  a  gamekeeper,  but  they  seldom  did 
any  violence  to  the  lord  or  his  family.  Their 
ignorance  and  brutality,  however,  were  capable  of 
almost  any  excess  under  excitement,  and  therein  lay 
danger.    ^L 

And  here  we  meet  one  lamentable  characteristic  of 
the  revolutionary  spirit  as  it  developed    during   the 

'  Travels  in  France,  Bohn  ed.,  197. 

''His  journal  abounds  in  similar  comments.  Thus,  in  August,  1789,  he  was 
in  Moulins,  a  capital  of  a  province  and  a  considerable  town,  and  found  no 
newspaper  i^  the  leading  caf6.  "  Here  is  a  feature,"  he  writes,  "of  national 
backwardness,  ignorance,  stupidity,  and  poverty.  Could  such  a  people  as 
this  ever  have  made  a  revolution  or  become  free?  Never  in  a  thousand  cen- 
turies. The  enlightened  mob  of  Paris,  amid  hundreds  of  papers  and  publi- 
fcations,  have  done  the  whole."  A  few  days  later  in  Clermont  he  writes: 
♦,'I  dined  or  supped  four  times  at   the  table  d'hote,  with  from  twenty  to 

Jhirty  merchants  and  tradesmen,  officers,  etc.,  and  it  is  not  easy  to  express 
he  insignificance,  the  inanity  of  the  conversation.  The  ignorance  or  the 
tupidity  of  these  people  must  be  absolutely  incredible." 


88  The  French  Revolution 

reign  of  Louis  XV.  If  it  was  mutinous  and  brutal 
among  the  worst  of  the  people,  among  the  best  people 
it  was  morally  selfish,  or  at  best  morally  neutral. 
The  Christian  ideal  had  been  lost  in  the  legitimate 
contempt  for  selfish  and  hypocritical  ecclesiastics, 
and  the  constructive  work  of  the  philosophers  had 
been  based  upon  rights^  not  upon  duties.  The  more 
one  reads  the  literature  of  the  times,  the  more  is  he 
convinced  that  so  thoroughly  had  the  French  been 
debauched  by  state  and  church,  noble  and  lawyer, 
that  true  moral  ideals  had  largely  disappeared,  not 
only  in  the  relations  of  the  sexes,  but  in  general 
theory.  It  is  not  only  that  everywhere  was  actual 
corruption;  the  much-vaunted  "fraternity"  had  be- 
come only  a  high-sounding  bit  of  rhetoric.  Liberty: 
may  be  gained  by  violence,  but  never  fraternity; 
indeed,  without  the  supplementary  and  regulating 
concept  of  love,  the  demand  for  liberty  and  equality 
can  lead  only  to  violence.  No  man  of  the  nineteenth 
century  has  better  understood  the  revolutionary  spirit 
than  Mazzini,  and  this  is  the  judgment  he  passes 
upon  the  Revolution:  *'The  error  of  the  French  Revo- 
lution was  not  the  abolition  of  monarchy.  1%  was  the 
attempt  to  build  up  a  republic  upon  the  theory  of 
rights,  which,  taken  alone,  inevitably  leads  to  the 
acceptance  oiles faits  accomplis ;  upon  the  sovereignty 
of  the  Ego^  which  leads  sooner  or  later  to  the  sover- 
eignty of  the  strongest  Ego;  upon  the  essentially 
monarchical  methods  of  extreme  centralization,  intol- 
erance, and  violence;  upon  that  false  definition  of  life 
given  by  men  educated  by  monarchy  and  inspired  by 


Development  of  the  Revolutionary  Spirit      89 

a  materialism  which,    having  canceled   God,  has  left 

--itself  nothing  to  worship  but  force."  ' 

J^  >  Before  passing  to  the  consideration  of  the  succes- 
sion of  ill-managed  and  unsuccessful  attempts  under 
Louis  XVI.  to  express  this  new  spirit  in  the  actual 
administration  of  the  nation,  one  must  recall  the  fact 
that  this  spirit  of  discontent  and  idealism  was  by  no 
means  confined  to  France,  Indeed,  it  characterized  f 
the  history  of  most  of  the  western  world  during  the  ■ 
last  quarter  of  the  eighteenth  century.  In  France 
it  went  to  greater  extremes,  because  it  was  neither 
properly  restrained  nor  directed,  but  philosophical  sen- 
timentalism  was  sweeping  over  all  lands.  Jefferson 
in  America,  Richardson  in  England,  Goethe  and 
Schiller  in  Germany,  were  but  a  few  of  its  represen- 
tatives. The  secret  order  of  the  lUuminati  endeav- 
ored to  unite  under  mysterious  vows  all  liberal  spirits 
in  Europe  for  the  purpose  of  spreading  revolutionary 
teachings.  Politics  were  making  discontent  epidemic. 
The  partition  of  Poland  by  Russia,  Prussia,  and  Aus- 
tria was  the  international  counterpart  of  the  suppres- 
sion of  Parlement  by  Louis  XV. ;  yet,  as  it  proved, 
it  was  not  only  an  exhibition  of  irresponsible  power, 
but  also  an  unintentional  step  toward  a  formulation 
of  international  law.  Joseph  II.  of  Austria,^  by  his 
arbitrary  suppression  of  the  ancient  rights  of  Hungary 
and  Bohemia,  awoke  that  national  feeling  among  the 
Czech  subjects  of  the  Hapsburgs  that  to-day  bids  fair 

^Essay  on  M.  Renan  and  France.    In  the  same  essay,  Mazzini  has  this 
^    fine  statement:    "Revolution  is  sacred  and  legitimate  only  when  undertaken 
*    in  the  name  of  a  new  aim  upon  the  path  of  progress,  capable  of  ameliorating 
I    the  moral,  intellectual,  and  material  condition  of  the  whole  people." 
(  ^see  Schlosser,  BisL  Etghtsentk  Century,  V,  356,  seq.,  Sorel,  U Europe 

J    et  la  Revolution  Frangaise,  1,  chs.  i,  2. 


90  The  French  Revolution 

to  dismember  the  Austrian  Empire.  The  same  mon- 
arch, in  1784,  brought  the  Austrian  Netherlands  to 
the  verge  of  revolt  by  abolishing  the  privileges  of  the 
clergy  and  nobles  in  the  Lowlands.  The  American 
colonies  rose  against  the  anachronistic  obstinacies 
of  George  III.  and  not  only  achieved  independence 
and  statehood,  but  what  was  of  far  greater  signifi- 
cance to  the  contemporary  passion  for  doctrinaire 
politics,  also  proved,  by  the  aid  of  the  French  army 
and  navy,  that  "all  men  are  created  free  and  equal." 
Thus  as  we  look  back  upon  the  century,  it  is  clear 
that  the  French  Revolution  was  no  sudden  outbreak 
of  passion,  still  less  "an  explosion  of  gunpowder." 
It  was  rather  the  culmination  of  a  long  social  process, 
in  which  the  spirit  of  France  had  outgrown  its  irra- 
tional, impotent  government  and  the  abominations  of 
a  dead  feudalism;  and  under  the  influence  of  the  phi- 
losophy of  the  age  had  struggled,  not  quite  impotently, 
toward  political  and  social  reforms.  Had  this  process 
continued  under  better  direction,  it  might  have  ended 
in  a  constitutional  evolution  that  would  have  accom- 
plished peacefully  all  the  reforms  the  Revolution 
bought  with  blood. 


J 

/ 


CHAPTER  VII 

fHE  REFORM  MOVEMENT  UNDER  TURCOT  AND 
NECKER 


J 


I.  The  Accession  of  Louis  XVI.  II.  Turgot:  i.  His  Reforms 
in  General;  2.  Enthusiasm  of  the  Nation;  3.  His  Difficul- 
ties; 4.  The  Re-establishment  of  the  Pariement  of  Paris; 
5.  Its  Struggle  with  Turgot;  6.  Turgot's  Dismissal.  III. 
Necker:  i.  His  Character;  2.  The  Public  Debt;  3.  Neck- 
er's  Methods  of  Meeting  the  Financial  Crisis;  3.  His  Pro- 
posed Reforms;  4.  His  Dismissal  and  the  Compte  Rendu\ 
5.  Significant  Facts  of  His  Administration — {cC)  The  Amer- 
ican Revolution,  {J))  Growing  Hatred  of  Marie  Antoinette, 
(c)  Apparent  Prosperity. 


On  the  night  of  May  10,  1774,  the  crowd  of  cour- 
tiers rushed  with  "a  mighty  noise  absolutely  like 
thunder"  down  the  great  staircase  at  Versailles  to 
announce  the  death  of  Louis  XV.  to  Louis  and  Marie 
Antoinette.  The  news  was  not  unexpected,  for  the 
old  king  was  known  to  have  the  smallpox;  but  in 
a  sudden  burst  of  emotion  the  new  sovereigns  fell 
upon  their  knees  and  prayed:  "O  God,  guide  us  and 
protect  us!     We  are  too  young  to  reign."  ^ 

There  is  no  evidence  that  Louis  knew  what  reforms 
were  needed  by  France.  He  had  never  been  given 
any  proper  training  for  his  official  future,  and  now, 
hardly  more  than  a  boy,  he  was  without  any  prepara- 

*Louis  XVI.  was  nearly  twenty,  and  Marie  Antoinette  not  nineteen.  A 
veritable  literature  has  grown  up  around  Marie  Antoinette.  The  original 
materials  are  chiefly  to  be  tound  in  the  Memoirs  of  Madame  Carapan,  her 
lady-in-waiting,  and  in  Arneth  and  Gefiroy,  Correspondance  Secrete.  Saint- 
Armand  has  a  good  popular  life  of  the  queen.- 

91 


92  The  French  Revolution 

tion  except  that  of  a  private  virtue,  which,  if  unique 
in  the  royal  house  of  the  Bourbons,  by  no  means  fitted 
him  for  ruling  a  nation  in  the  condition  of  France. 

The  first  cabinet  of  the  new  reign  was  avowedly 

bent  upon  reform,  and  Louis  called  to  his  aid  the  one 

great  administrator  produced  by  France  between  the 

days    of    Colbert   and     Napoleon    Bonaparte,     Anne 

Robert    Jacques   Turgot.^      He    had    already    made 

remarkable  improvements  in  the  Limousin,  over  which 

he  had  been  intendant,  and  his  appointment  by  Louis 

XVL   as  controller  of  the  finances  was  an  evidence 

of  the  young  king's  sincerity.     Turgot  refused  to  take 

any  steps  looking   toward    constitutional    monarchy. 

He  was  not   interested    in    politics   as  such,    but  set 

about  the  rehabilitation  of  France  by  the  destruction 

of  economic  abuses.^     First  of  all,  in  order  to  meet 

the  fearful  famine  of  1774,  he  aJ2SlU§toi-.aiLUnffs  oxl 

^      grain  passing  between  the  provin;gg§.  of  the  kingdopi. 

Then  he  abolished  the  corvee^  or  forced.. labctfon  roads 

L   ^  and  other  public^worj^s.     Then  he  abolished  the  trade 

guilds^ ^ild„  J; i;ieir  monopolies.     At  the  same  time  he 

^  '     declared  against   any    new   taxes  and  proposed    taz 

*t^     reforms,"  and  undertook  to  bring  the  expenses  of  the 

^       slate   into  agreement  with   its  jeceipts.     Liberty^of 

religion"  afiid  the  press^'Ee^also  championed,   though 

igt,,        -^,.....^ 

•The  best  English  life  of  Turgot  is  that  by  W.  W.  Stephens.  See  also 
Morley,  Critical  Miscellanies,  Second  Series;  Batbie,  Turgot— Philosophe, 
Economiste  et  A  dministrateur. 

•His  political  views  appear  in  his  "Memorial  to  Louis  XVI.  on  Munici- 

Ealities":  "The  rights  otmen  gathered  in  society  are  not  founded  on  their 
istory  as  men,  but  in  their  nature.  There  can  be  no  reason  to  perpetuate 
establishments  which  were  made  without  reason.  ...  So  long  as  your 
Majesty  does  not  stray  beyond  the  lines  of  justice,  you  may  regard  jjourself 
as  an  absolute  legislator."— See  Stephens,  Life  and  Writings  of  Turgot, 
265,  seq. 

*Some  wit  suggested  that  he  was  preparing  for  a  St.  Bartholomew  Day 
for  intendants. 


The  Reform  Movement  93 

less  energetically.  Louis  promised  him  full  support. 
"I  will  share  all  your  views,  and  always  support  you 
in  the  courageous  steps  you  will  have  to  take,"  he 
said.  The  country  grew  sanguine  that  a  new  era  was 
about  to  dawn.  Voltaire  wrote  D'Alembert:  "It 
seems  to  me  as  if  there  were  a  new  heaven  and  a  new 
earth.  "^ 

But  even  a  king  with  the  best  of  intentions  and 
with  a  physiocrat  for  reform  minister  could  not  meet 
popular  expectations.  Ey^rj/;^reJ^m  meap.t  ,^a 
privilege,  and  the  very  rapidity  with  which  decree 
foTTowecC^ciecree  swept  all  classes  of  the  privileged 
into  one  concentrated  party  of  opposjtipn.  Tur- 
got's  reforms  didliot  immediately  reduce  the  price  of 
b^jtii,  and"  in  alt  parts  of  France,  rioti — "the  j^rain^ 
war" — broke  out,  which  had  to  be  put  down  Dy  the 
miTTtary.  One  mob  even  came  to  the  palace  at  Ver- 
sailles. The  sp i r i t„,.af .. . -the,..  .PMisi.a.R.,  J»rp le tariat  .grew 
desperate.  "If  the  rich  do  not  come  to  the  help  of 
the  poor  and  take  no  pains  to  provide  them  with 
bread,"  ran  one  of  the  numerous  anonymous  letters 
and  placards,  "the  poor  will  demand  it  with  armed 
hand." 

None  the  less  this  rapid  "bleeding  of  the  nation," 
as  a  high  court  lady  termed  Turgot's  reforms,  might 
have  continued  indefinitely,  and  might  even  have  made 
the  Revolution  impossible,  had  it  not  been  for  another 
of   Louis   XVI. 's    acts,    which,   though   prompted    by 

^Madame  Roland  wrote  at  this  time:  "The  ministers  are  enlightened  and 
well  disposed,  the  young  king  docile  and  eager  for  good,  the  queen  amiable 
and  beneficent,  the  court  kind  and  respectable,  the  legislative  body  honor- 
able, the  people  obedient,  wishing  only  to  love  their  master,  the  kingdom 
full- of  resources.  Ah,  but  we  are  going  to  be  happy!"  Talleyrand  was 
equally  hopeful.    See  fiis  Memoirs,  I,  17. 


94  The  French  Revolution 

I 

kindliness,  was  utterly  unwise — the  recall  of  the  Pa r- 

lement  and^  thelabolition  of  the  courtsesta^^ 
by  Maupeou.  The  reinstatement  of  Parlement^wal 
atTefeat  for  Tur^t,  and, "as  it  proved,  was  to  be 
the  occasion  of  his  downfall.  From  the  moment 
of  its  reappearance  it  opposed  reforms,  and  Turgot's 
decrees  were  registered  with  increasing  difficulty. 
Unfortunately,  also,  the  masses  misintgrpretedjjie  de- 
crees  to  mean  the  abrogation  oi  feudal  pjlyilg^;£§jn^ 
general^  and  the  wave  of  disorders  which  swept  over 
th*eTiation  aided  the  opposition. 

The  king  showed  signs  of  weakening.  His  minis- 
ter endeavored  to  recall  him  to  something  better  than 
sentiment.  "Do  not  forget,  sire,"  he  wrote  April  30, 
1776,  "that  it  was  weakness  which  put  the  head  of 
Charles  I.  on  the  block."  But  Louis  lost  cori|i,4§nc^ 
in^e^reforn3t$,aiMl-4n..Tu  The  pressure 

from  Maurepas  and  the  court  party  grew  greater. 
Marie  Antoinette,  who  had  always  detested  the  fat, 
reserved,  awkward  guardian  of  the  treasury,  became 
enraged  at  the  recall  of  one  of  her  friends  who 
had  been  minister  to  England,  and  demanded  that 
he  should  be  reinstated  with  the  title  of  duke,  and  that 
Turgot  should  be  discharged  and  sent  to  the  Bastile.' 
Then  Louis  yielded,  and  on  Ma,SJUi*>JJ-^}  Turgot  was 
dismissed,  and  the  state  passed  over  into  the  hands  of 
the  court  party. 

Resultles^s  as  it  appeared,  Turgot's  work  was  of 
the  utmost  importance,  in  that  it  gave  France  a  taste 

'Marie  Antoinette  wrote  her  mother,  the  Empress  Maria  Theresa,  that 
she  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  removal  of  Turgot.  But  we  have  Mercy's 
letter  to  the  empress  giving  the  account  in  full.  Both  letters  are  in  Arnetb 
and  Geflfroy,  Correspondance^  II,  441,  442. 


The  Reform  Movement  95 

of  what  honest  administration  could  do  for  the 
"unprivileged. 

piuny,  Turgol  s  successor,  in  the  few  months  of 
his  official  life,  undid  as  many  of  Turgot's  reforms  as 
possible.  The  "?^7^?F""^"biice  more  was  enforced, 
rnonoporries  again  throve,  all  reforms  in  taxation  were 
abandoned,  and  economy  was  thrown  to  the  winds. 
As  his  financial  measures  he  established  a  royal  lot- 
tery, and  proposed  to  declare  the  state  bankrupt.  By 
October,  1776,  Cluny  had  squandered  all  that  Turgot 
had  succeeded  in  saving.  Death,  however,  fortunately 
removed  him,  and  Maurepas,  the  prime  minister, 
reverting  again  to  the  original  policy  of  reform,  gave 
the  portfolio  of  finance  to  Jacques  Necker,  a  Genevese 
and  a  Protestant.  Because  of  this  latter  fact  the  new 
appofnteeTwas  not.  .allowed  the  rank  of  minister  and 
a  place  in  the  cabinet,  but  had  only  the  title  of 
director  of  finance.  The  court  party  despised  him, 
and  with  Talleyrand^  chose  to  believe  "that  with  his 
fantastic  hat,  his  long  head,  his  big  body,  burly  and 
ill  shaped,  his  inattentive  airs,  his  scornful  demeanor, 
his  constant  use  of  maxims  painfully  drawn  from  the 
laboratory  of  his  mind,  he  had  all  the  appearance  of 
a  charlatan."  But  self-important  as  he  was,  the 
court  did  Necker  injustice. 

Of  the  two  dangers  which  threatened  the  state, 
bankruptcy  and  ingg^uality  of  privilege,  the  latter  has 
perhaps""Teen  sufficientt^nS^lcntTed,  but  the  financial 
difficulty  requires  explanation.  As  in  the  case  of 
other  evils,    the  financial  distress  of  France  may  be 

^M€nioires,\,yj.  Von  Hoist,  French  Resolution,  I,  104,  calls  Necker  a 
"bold  juggler."    Gouverneur  Morris  thought  him  not  a  great  man. 


96  The  French  Revolution 

traced  to  Louis  X^V.  His  suicidal  wars  and  religious 
persgfiutipn,  coupled  with  boundless  exj^r^vj^jr^fice. 
had  bequeathed  to  his  successors  a  fixed  debt  of  but 
little  less  than  five  hundred  million  dollars  (2,471  mil- 
lion livres).  The  maladministration,  wars,  and 
extravagance  of  Louis  XV.  had  increased  this  debt, 
and  although  it  is  impossible  to  give  figures  that  are 
accurate,  so  lacking  are  we  in  reliable  information,  it 
is  safe  to  say  that  at  the  accession  of  Louis  XVI.  the 
national  debt  of  France  amounted  to  more  than  ^ve 
hun^jngji^JJiilHon  doUc^rs.  There  were  few  if  any  years 
in  which  honest  statements  would  not  have  shown 
a  deficit.  The  total  expenses  of  the  nation  at  the 
accession  of  Louis  XVL  were  estimated  at  399,200,- 
000  livres,  and  the  receipts  at  371,980,000  livres. 
Even  on  this  reckoning  there  was  a  deficit  of  between 
five  and  six  million  dollars,  but  as  a  matter  of  fact  the 
deficit  was  nearer  ten  million.^  '  So  far  as  the  debt 
itself  went,  the  matter  would  not  to-day  be  counted 
serious.  Modern  France,  with  a  population  only  half 
as  large  again,  carries  successfully  a  debt  of  more 
than  six  billion  dollars.^  Besides,  France  was  in 
many  ways  economically  convalescent.  The  deficit 
was  not  as  great  as  it  had  been  in  1715.^  Commerce 
in   1778  was  double  that  of   1763,  and  as  has  already 

»See  Boiteau,  Eiat  de  la  France  en  178c),  ch.  15.  Adam  Smith,  Wealth 
of  Nations,  bk.  v,  ch.  3,  says  on  the  authority  of  the  Parlement  of  Bordeaux, 
tnat  in  1764  the  public  debt  was  2,^00,000,000  livres.  See  further,  Stourm. 
Les  Finances  de  la  Rev.fran.;  Bailly,  VHtsioire  ftnanciere  de  la  France 
On  the  influence  of  the  financial  crisis  in  general,  see  Clamageran,  Histoire, 
du  Impot  en  France,  III;  Gomel,  Les  Causes  financieres  de  la  Revolution 
Frangaise  {Les  Ministeres  de  Turgot  et  de  Necker);  Viihrer,  *  Histoire  de  la 
Dette Publique  en  France,  especially  ch.  10. 

'The  Statesman's  Year-Book,  1900. 

'See  Clamageran,  Hist .  du  /m/>of  en  France,  III,  465  seq.,  and  De  Tocque- 
ville,  L'Ancien  Regime,  for  fullest  discussion. 


The  Reform  Movement  97 

been  stated,  the  condition  of  the  peasants,  at  least 
in  northern  France,  was  improving.  The  really  seri- 
ous difficulty  lay  in  the  hopelessly  confused  adminis- 
trative system,  with  its  duplication  of  officials  and  its 
useless  officers,  even  more  than  in  any  attempt  to  force 
the  privileged  classes  to  pay  their  proper  share  of  the 
taxes. 

The  problem  was  complicated,  also,  by  the  heavy 
additional  expense  incurred  by  the  ill-advised,  though 
generous,  war  with  England  in  aid  of  the  American 
colonies.  To  meet  these  new  demands,  as  well  as  to 
avoid  a  deficit,  Necker  had  recourse  to  loans  of  vari- 
ous sorts.  It  was  to  prove  a  fatal  policy,  but  at  first 
it  seemed  a  stroke  of  genius,  for  he  was  able  to  bor- 
row altogether  something  like  one  hundred  and  six 
million  dollars  on  not  unfavorable  rates.  ^  But  these 
loans  were  to  be  paid  from  taxes^  and  here  the  ques- 
tion of  privilege  was  paramount. 

This  Necker  foresaw  and  endeavored  to  anticipate. 
Less  impatient  than  Turgot,  he  went  about  his  work 
cautiously,  but  with  determination.  In  the  interest  of 
economy  quite  as  much  as  of  efficient  administration, 
he  reduced  the  number  of  the  various  treasurers  from 
forty-eight  to  twelve,  and  reorganized  the  treasury 
department  on  a  business  basis.  Up  to  this  time,  as 
the  Count  d'Artois  naively  said  later,  "the  expenses  of 
the  king  had  not  been  regulated  by  the  receipts,  but 
the  receipts  by  the  expenses."     Now  the  system  was 

'Among  these  loans  established  by  Necker  were  annuities.  In  estab- 
lishing these  he  disregarded  all  questions  of  age  and  health,  and  thus  ex- 
posed the  state  to  serious  loss.  Persons  bought  annuities  for  their  children, 
and  it  is  said  that  in  i88S  there  were  ten  persons  to  whom  the  French  gov- 
ernment was  still  paying  annuities  bought  in  or  before  1786I  Viihrer,  His- 
toire  de  la  Dette  publique,  272. 


98  The  French  Revolution 

reversed,  greatly  to  the  chagrin  of  the  queen  and  her 
friends.  Pensions  were  cut  down  twenty-eight  million 
francs  a  year,  and  numbers  of  ungecessarY  Qffi&e,rs  in 
the  king's  household  as  well  as  in  different  adminis- 
trative departments  were  discharged.  By  way  of 
increasing^  the  income^J^  forced  upon  the  syndicates 
wli'o  toughtup"*ttre  right  of  collecting  the  indirect 
taxes,  new  contracts  which  netted  the  state  several 
million  dollars  of  additiq]i|tj,  JxitCJQiiie.  Nor  was  he  so 
blind  as  not  to  see  that  the  financial  distress  of  the 
nation  could  be  remedied  only  by  '  "^P^. ^ ^.JL^ £fi.l[lf  r^^ 
condidgji,.^  He  favored  allowing  the  provincial  assem- 
blies to  assess  the  taxes  of  their  provinces,  and  he 
induced  the  king  to  manum|t  all  serfs  on  the  royal 
domains — an  example  followed  by  many  of  the  nobility 
and  clergy  as  a  class.^  It  was  due  to  his  influence,  also, 
that  the  hideous  practice  was  abolished  of  torturing 
prisoners  before  their  trial,  although  after  their  con- 
demnation it  was  still  permitted.^  His  plans  went 
even  further,  and  in  a  lengthy  memoir  sent  by  him 
to  the  king  he  proposed  reducing  the  hated  gabelle,  or 
tax  on  salt,  by  destroying  the  monopoly  in  salt  held 
"Bymembers  of  the  court;  to  abolish  the  tax  of  the 
dt7ne;  to  increase  the  salary  of  the  country  curate  to 
two  hundred  and  forty  dollars'  by  appropriating  some 

*There  were  i,5oo,ocx)  serfs  in  France,  August  4,  1789.  Bailly,  Memoires, 
11,214. 

•Such  a  fact  as  this,  indicating  how  accustomed  the  French  people  were 
to  judicial  cruelty,  as  well  as  the  disregard  of  rights  shown  in  the  existence 
of  thousands  of  imprisonments  without  trial  by  means  of  the  royal  lettres  de 
cachet,  go  far  to  explain  the  cruel  laws  of  the  Revolution.  In  the  same 
wav  the  fact  that  Paris  had  no  slaughter-houses  and  that  cattle  were  slaugh- 
tered in  the  streets  must  among  other  things  have  gone  far  to  brutalize  the 
Parisian  mob.  (Thiebault,  Memoirs,\,Z^.)  Executions  were  public  in  the 
Place  de  Greve. 

»It  was  then  less  than  $150. 


The  Reform  Movement  99 

of  the  large  revenues  of  the  higher  clergy  and  religious 
establishments;^  to  abolish  the  office  of  intendant;  to 
restrict  the  Parlements  to  merely  judicial  duties,  thus 
destroying  their  right  of  '*  registering"  edicts.  All 
of  these  proposals  were  wise,  and  could  they  have 
been  once  put  into  operation  would  have  gone  far 
toward  the  regeneration  of  the  nation,  but  unfortu- 
nately some  person  stole  and  published  the  memoir 
before  the  king  had  given  his  decisions.  Immediately 
all  of  the  parties  whose  privileges  were  threatened 
united,  under  the  lead  of  the  Parlement  of  Paris, 
against  Necker,  9414  b.^..W^,aioxQ64i.o^ resign. 

Just  before  he  resigned,  Necker  issued  his  famous 
Compte  Rendu^  or  financial  report,  in  which  he  so 
manipulated  the  accounts  that  the  receipts  of  the  state 
exceeded  the  expenses  by  about  two  million  dollars.^ 
France  now  knew  how  many  millions  were  going  to 
the  support  of  royal  establishments,  pensions,  and 
sinecures.  But  this  was  not  the  most  important  result 
of  this  publication.  The  public,  which  had  been 
given  by  Turgot  the  reasons  for  certain  of  his  de- 
crees, now  interpreted  this  act  of  Necker's  to  imply 
that  the  government  had  conceded  it  the  right  to 
know  and  advise  about  the  national  finances.  The 
Compte  Rendu  was,  accordingly,  not  only  an  interest- 
ing document;  it  was  interpreted,  more  or  less  dis- 
tinctly, to  be  a  step  toward  constitutional  government. 
In  this  respect  it  was  in  some  true  sense  what  Boiteau 

'This  proposition  is  interesting  as  anticipating  the  legislation  of  the 
Constituent  Assembly. 

'This  gratifying  result  was  reached  only  by  omitting  the  special  expenses 
of  the  American  war.  In  reality  there  was  a  deficit  of  about  $23,000,000  in 
1780,  and  of  $16,000,000  in  1781.  Gomel,  Causes  financieres  de  la  Kev.  Fran., 
510.  Von  Hoist,  French  Revolution,  I,  104,  makes  the  true  deficit  219,000,000 
livres. 


loo  The  French  Revolution 

has  rather  extravagantly  called  it,  "the  first  revolu- 
tionary step  France  took." 

Two  other  facts  of  this  short  reform  period  are  of 
importance.  The  Aineriq^n  fifi^YQ-^y.^JQ"  "°t  ^^^Y  won 
French  aid,  but,  as  any  reader  of  the  Declaration  of 
Independence  can  understand,  it  offered  practical 
lessons  to  the  French  enthusiasts  for  liberty.  Frank- 
lin, with  his  bland  face,  his  unpowdered  hair,  his 
gray  clothes,  and  his  general  patriarchal  simplicity, 
seemed  like  the  incarnation  of  the  "natural  man." 
We  know  well  enough  that  Franklin  was  many 
removes  from  such  a  character,  but  such  he  might 
very  well  have  appeared  to  the  courtiers  of  Ver- 
sailles.' But  quite  as  much  as  Franklin,  did  the  part 
played  by  French  troops  and  officers  in  the  American 
Revolution  tend  to  give  reality  to  the  doctrines  and 
ideals  of  liberty.  Many  of  the  most  prominent  mem- 
bers of  the  first  Assembly  had,  like  La  Fayette,  been 
in  America,  and  had  brought  back  to  France  a  knowl- 
edge of  repubUcan  simplicity  and  a  desire  to  see  pop- 
ular sovereignty  embodied  in  Frejich  laws.^ 

The  other  fact  to^  bcnnoticed  in  these  years  is  the 
growing  hatred  of  Marie"' Antoiu^e.  It  is  not  diffi- 
cult to  understand  why  this  should  have  been  the 
case.  The  queen  was,  first  of  all,  an  Austrian,  and 
Austria  had  been  for  a  century  the  foe  of  France.  But 
this   fact   is   not  sufficient   to   explain    the    malignity 

'Thomas  Jefferson,  in  1791,  declared  that  it  appeared  to  him  that  "more 
respect  and  veneration  attacned  to  the  character  of  Dr.  Franklin  in  France 
than  to  that  of  any  other  person  in  the  same  country,  foreign  or  native,"  and 
the  Constituent  Assembly,  at  his  death  in  1790,  ordered  mourning-  for  three 
days.    Hazen,  American  Opinion  of  the  French  Revolution,  148,  seq. 

,  "See  also  the  preface  to  the  American  edition  of  Stephens,  French  Revo- 
lution, I. 


The  Reform  Movement  loi 

exhibited  in  countless  obscene  pamphlets  which  began 
to  appear  in  1776,  and  continued  despite  all  attempts 
at  suppression — a  most  shocking  testimony  to  the 
moral  depravity,  of  the  Parisian  public.  For  an  ex- 
planation of  such  phenomena  one  must  look  further — 
to  the  indiscreet  conduct  of  the  queen,  her  frivolity, 
her  attendance  on  public  masked  balls,  her  choice  of 
friends,'  her  extraordinary  talent  for  making  enemies 
of  persons  in  all  classes,  her  extravagance,  her  prodi- 
gious love  of  gambling,  and,  perhaps  as  much  as  any- 
thing, her  opposition  to  Turgot  and  Necker,  and  her 
known  or  rightly  suspected  share  in  the  removal  of 
each.^ 

Yet  after  all,  France  seemed  more  prosperous  than 
for  years,  and  even  the  clear-eyed  Franklin,  in  all  his 
nine  years  in  France,-  seems  never  to  have  noted  any 
tendency  toward  revolution.  So  true  is  it  that  pre- 
revolutionary  periods  are  likely  to  appear  full  of  pros- 
perity to  those  who  share  in  that  prosperity. 

'The  Count  de  Dillon  actually  had  his  pocket  picked  under  the  eyes  of 
the  queen, 

'The  utterly  baseless  scandal  of  the  Diamond  Necklace  greatly  intensified 
this  hatred.  For  the  details  of  this  extraordinary  affair,  see  McCarthy, 
French  Revolution,  I,  chs.  12-14;  Carlyle,  "The  Diamond  Necklace,"  Essays 
(Am.  ed.),IV. 


mmm  of  mmw 

DEPARTMENT  OF 

UNiVEKsrry  cxtexsius. 


CHAPTER    VIII 

BANKRUPTCY   AND   THE   CONVOCATION    OF   THE 
STATES    GENERAL 

I.  The  Reinstatement  of  Abuse.  II.  Calonne:  i.  His  Meth- 
ods; 2.  Extent  of  His  Borrowings;  3.  His  Return  to  Re 
form.  III.  The  Assembly  of  the  Notables:  i.  Reforms 
Approved  by  It;  2.  Its  Call  for  a  National  Assembly; 
3.  The  Fall  of  Calonne.  IV.  Brienne:  i.  His  Struggle 
with  the  Parlement  of  Paris;  2.  His  Proposal  of  a  Plenary 
Court;  3.  New  Constitutional.  V.  The  Promise  of  the 
States  General. 

The  next  day  after  his  dismissal  of  Necker,  Louis 
declared  that  "though  he  had  changed  ministers,  he 
had  not  changed  principles."  None  the  less,  as  in 
the  case  of  Turgot,  the  dismissal  of  Necker  gave  the 
court  party  the  control  of  the  state,  and  with  it  came 
a  rehabilitation  of  abuse.  Joly  de  Fleury,  who  suc- 
ceeded Necker,  had  hardly  assumed  office  when  he 
considerably  increased  the  tax  on  objects  of  consump- 
tion. A  new  loan  of  a  million  dollars  was  authorized 
to  meet  the  wants  of  the  king's  brothers,  the  Count 
de  Provence  and  the  Count  d'Artois^;  new  taxes  were 
levied  to  carry  on  the  war;  the  numerous  receivers- 
general  whose  offices  had  been  abolished  by  Necker, 
as  well  as  the  other  officers  he  had  dismissed,  were 
reinstated.     At  the  same  time,  in  the  face  of  the  aid 

*The  Count  of  Provence,  commonly  known  as  Monseigneur,  became 
Louis  XVIII.,  and  the  Count  d'Artois,  Charles  X,  They  both  were  on 
dubious  terms  with  Louis. 


Bankruptcy  and  the  States  General       103 

the  army  was  giving  the  American  colonies,  and  as  if 
to  emphasize  its  reaction  from  liberal  sentiments,  the 
government  decreed  that  no  person  should  become 
a  captain  whose  family  had  not  been  noble  for  four 
generations — a  decree  most  galling  to  the  Third 
Estate. 

Opposition  came  from  the  provinces.  The  Parle- 
ment  of  Paris  registered  all  the  new  decrees  without 
hesitation,  but  the  Parlement  of  Besangon  refused, 
some  of  its  members  appearing  in  Versailles  with  bread 
made  of  oatmeal  to  show  the  distress  of  the  peasantry. 
They  met  only  reprimand  and  , threats,  however,  and 
went  back  to  register  the  tax  for  their  district,  but  at 
the  same  time  to  demand  for  themselves  their  old 
provincial  assembly  and  for  the  nation  the  States 
General^  or  national  assembly  of  the  three  estates 
(February  17,  1783).^  Other  Parlements  joined  in  the 
resistance  to  the  new  financial  system,  but  found  the 
ministry  too  strong  for  them.  As  a  result,  under  the 
lead  of  the  Parlement  of  Besan^on,  these  bodies  of 
magistrates  began  the  formation  of  a  sort  of  confed- 
eration, not  so  much  to  protect  their  ancient  privi- 
leges as  to  "return  to  great  principles"  and  to  demand 
by  a  unanimous  cry  the  States  General. 

To  all  appearances,  however,  the  ministry's  policy 
was  highly  successful,  and  the  royal  family  itself  won 
favor  by  the  birth  of  the  dauphin.^  The  king  seems 
to  have  believed  the  time  for  economy  to  have  passed 

'It  is  worth  noticing  that  this  same  Parlement,  when  the  royal  com- 
mandant of  the  town  attempted  to  force  them  to  register  the  edict,  declared 
that  "the  kin^  ruled  by  law,  and  that  the  men  to  whom  he  delegated  his 
power  were,  like  other  citizens,  obliged  to  respect  law." 

'This  prince  died  in  1789.  The  unfortunate  child  known  in  Bourbon 
records  as  Louis  XVII.,  who  disappeared  during  the  Reign  of  Terror,  was  a 
younger  brother. 


I04  The  French  Revolution 

with  the  signing  of  the  treaty  with  England  in  Sep- 
tember, 1783,  and  set  about  buying  the  palace  of 
Rambouillet  to  save  some  of  his  friends  from  bank- 
ruptcy. Fleury  had  by  this  time  been  succeeded  by 
D'Ormesson,  but  he  was  dismissed,  and  a  thorough- 
going creature  of  the  court,  Calonne,  was  placed  in 
his  stead,  the  eighth  administrator  of  finance  in  nine 
years. 

Calonne  was  for  a  few  months  the  ideal  of  the 
thoughtless,  reckless  court  ring,  at  the  head  of  which 
stood  the  Poli^nac  women,  the  bosom  friends  of  the 
queen.  His  policy  was  that  of  the  conscious  bank- 
rupt: to  gain  credit,  practice  luxury.  No  insane  policy 
was  ever  so  rigorously  followed.  Economy,  taxes, 
reforms  were  all  thrown  to  the  winds,  and  money  was 
borrowed  with  absolute  madness.  For  a  few  months 
the  court  reveled  in  a  golden  age.  Even  the  poor 
were  cared  for  generously,  great  public  works  were 
erected  in  various  cities,  agricultural  prizes  were 
established,  and,  in  fact,  every  virtue  seems  to  have 
had  some  gold  medal  endowed  for  its  encouragement. 

And  all  this  on  the  hollow  foundations  of  debt. 
By  1786  Calonne  had  borrowed  $130,000,000,  the 
annual  deficit  was  $25,000,000,  the  entire  national 
income  only  about  $82,000,000,  and  the  interest-bear- 
ing debt  over  $600,000,000.^  But  there  are  limits  even 
to  audacity,  and  the  inevitable  result  overtook 
Calonne.  He  was  borrowing  to  pay  loans,  he  was 
anticipating  taxes,  and  his  resources  began  to  fail. 
The  national    receipts  were    insufficient  to  pay  the 

*The  relative  wealth  of  pre-  and  post-revolutionary  France  can  be  real- 
ized by  recalling  that  the  annual  budget  of  France  is  to-day  about  the  same 
amount  as  this  entire  debt,  though  in  purchasing  value  only  about  a  third. 


Bankruptcy  and  the  States  General       105 

running  expenses  of  the  government.  The  clergy, 
when  asked  for  a  gift  of  $4,000,000,  gave  only 
$3,600,000,  and  that  on  condition  that  the  works  of 
Voltaire  should  be  suppressed.'  The  Parlements  both 
of  Paris  and  the  provinces  registered  new  loans  only 
under  protest,  and  Louis  was  increasingly  obliged  t^ 
adopt  the  arbitrary  methods  of  Louis  XV.  Publi; 
confidence  in  Calonne  himself  vanished,  and  by  the 
end  of  1786  the  subscriptions  for  his  loans  began  to 
fall  off.  Thereupon  he  undertook  a  stamp  tax  on 
paper,  music,  carriages,  and  objects  of  luxury  in 
general.  He  sold  titles  indiscriminately.  And  then, 
in  despair  of  inducing  Parlement  to  register  any  more 
loans,  Calonne  proposed  to  the  king  to  call  together 
the  Assembly  of  Notables  to  consider  reform  in  the 
taxes.  "But  that  is  Neckerism  you  are  proposing!" 
said  Louis.  "Sire,"  said  Calonne,  "in  the  state  of 
affairs,  one  can  offer  you  nothing  better." 

And  in  truth  at  last,  though  too  late,  Calonne  was 
to  learn  other  things  from  Necker  than  the  fatal  art 
of  borrowing.  The  programme  of  loans  was  to  be 
abandoned  and  reform  was  to  be  again  attempted. 
Necker's  proposals  for  provincial  assemblies,  equaliza- 
tion of  taxes  among  the  three  orders,  the  reduction 
of  customs,  the  land  and  capitation  taxes,  and  the 
abolition  of  the  corvde — all  these  now  were  Calonne's. 
He  even  propojBed  to  sell  part  of  the  royal  domain,  and 
apply  the  pr/oceeds  to  the  public  debt.  And  the 
Notables,  the  most  prominent  nobles,  ecclesiastics, 
and  magistrates,  were  to  be  summoned  to  approve  this 

*The  clergy  pIso  wished  the  penalty  of  death  inflicted  on  writers  like 
Voltaire,  but  the  Jcing  refused  to  listen  to  their  proposals. 


io6  The  French  Revolution 

general  scheme,  and  thereby  reduce  the  opposition  of 
court  and  Parlement.' 

February  22,  1787,  the  Notables  met  in  Versailles, 
to  the  number  of  one  hundred  and  forty-five.  Their 
sessions  were  held  in  seven  boards,  each  presided  over 
Jpy  a  prince  of  the  blood.  To  them  Calonne  unfolded, 
^with  charming  self-confidence,  his  difficulties  and  his 
proposed  reforms.^  Chiefly  because  of  his  unfortu- 
nate reputation,  Calonne  found  little  sympathy  in  his 
new  assembly,  although  it  was  by  no  means  lacking 
in  liberal  members  like  La  Fayette.  Through  their 
influence,  doubtless,  the  proposal  for  establishing 
provincial  assemblies  was  approved  without  delay,  as 
was  the  abolition  of  the  corvSe^  but  the  provisions 
looking  for  an  equalization  of  privileges  found  foes  as 
well  as  friends.  The  Notables  were  more  concerned 
with  learning  the  exact  state  of  the  finances  than  with 
new  taxes.  They  even  accused  Calonne  of  peculation, 
and  finally  assured  the  king  that  the  only  basis  upon 
which  they  could  assist  him  was  the  removal  of 
Calonne.  The  king,  with  characteristic  weakness, 
therefore  dismissed  him,  and  even  exiled  him  to 
Lorraine. 

In  appointing  his  successor  Louis  would  not  listen 
to  the  popular  cry  for  a  recall  of  Necker,  now  the 
very  god  of  the  populace,  but  again  following  the 
wishes  of  the  queen,  appointed  Calonne's  arch-enemy 

'These  sensible  proposals  are  said  to  have  been  the  work  of  Dupont  de 
Nemours,  Turgot's  most  prominent  disciple  and  a  correspondent  of  five 
kings. 

•A  comic  print  of  the  times  represents  the  meeting  as  an  assembly  of 

Eoultry  before  a  farmer  who  makes  to  them  this  opening  address:  "Dear 
irds,  I  have  assembled  you  to  advise  me  what  sauce  I  shall  eat  you  with." 
A  cock  replies,  "But  we  don't  want  to  be  eaten."  Whereupon  the  farmer 
replies,  "You  wander  from  the  subject." 


Bankruptcy  and  the  States  General        107 

in  the  Notables,  an  impossible  man,  Lomenie  de  Bri- 
enne,  Archbishop  of  Toulouse.  The  new  minister 
immediately  proposed  a  loan  of  sixty  million  livres, 
promising  an  annual  saving  of  forty  million  in  the 
royal  establishment.  The  Parlement,  "touched  with 
his  beautiful  promises,"  promptly  registered  the  loan. 
The  Notables,  however,  grew  impatient  of  Brienne's 
insistence  upon  Calonne's  further  theory,"submission 
and  taxation,"  and  La  Fayette  even  proposed  that 
the  king  be  asked  to  summon  a  National  Assembly 
within  five  years.  "What,  Monsieur,"  cried  the 
Count  d'Artois,  who  was  presiding  at  the  time,  "do 
you  demand  the  convocation  of  the  States  General?" 
"Yes,  Monseigneur, "  replied  La  Fayette,  "and  even 
more  than  that!" 

But  the  affair  went  no  further.  Brienne  easily  dis- 
missed this  anomalous  representative  body  with  a 
polite  speech  of  congratulation  upon  its  services,  and 
on  May  25th  it  vanished.  Though  it  had  had  no 
legal  status,  it  had  done  one  great  thing:  as  La  Fayette 
wrote  his  friends  in  America,  it  had  "helped  the  nation 
form  the  habit  of  thinking  upon  public  affairs."  But 
the  Notables  had  really  done  something  quite  as 
important.  Though  clinging  to  the  principle  of 
privilege,  they  had  sanctioned  many  of  the  reforms 
of  Turgot  and  Necker,  vicariously  proposed  by 
Calonne. 

But  even  here  one  does  not  see  the  greatest  sig- 
nificance of  this  informal  assembly.  It  was  the  publi-  * 
cation  of  the  fact,  presaged  by  Turgot's  prefixing 
reasons  to  his  edicts,  and  by  the  publication  of 
Necker' s  Compte  Rendu^  that  the  ancient  French  abso- 


io8  The  French  Revolution 

lutism  was  moving  toward  constitutional  monarchy. 
It  was  as  Mirabeau,  already  a  man  of  importance  in 
the  literary  world  of  politics,  foresaw.  The  day  of 
the  Notables'  meeting  "preceded  by  but  little  that  of 
the  National  Assembly." 

The  Assembly  of  Notables  had  no  legal  power,  and 
before  the  reforms  it  approved  could  become  laws  it 
was  necessary  to  submit  them  to  the  Parlement  of 
Paris.  Brienne  certainly  bungled  matters;  but  as  it 
was,  the  Parlement,  no  more  than  the  Notables,  made 
any  difficulty  over  the  institution  of  the  provincial 
assemblies  or  the  abolition  of  the  corvee} 
yThe  main  questions  at  issue  between   Brienne  and 

/Wie  Parlement  were  fiscal.  Parlement  would  not 
register  a  stamp  tax.  It,  like  the  Notables,  preferred 
investigating  the  condition  of  the  nation.  The  king 
bade  it  keep  within  its  prerogatives,  and  register. 
The  Parlement  thereupon  voted  that  for  a  permanent 
tax  the  States  General  should  be  summoned.  The  con- 
stitutional position  was  untenable,  but  the  vote  voiced 
a  rapidly  growing  public  opinion.  The  Parlement 
became  instantly  the  idol  of  the  crowd.  It  was  a  new 
role  for  it  to  play — it,  the  quintessence  of  privilege, 
now  championing  popular  rights — and  it  grew  some- 
what intoxicated,  refused  to  register  a  decree  looking 
to  an  improved  land  tax,  as  well  as  that  establishing 
the  stamp  tax.  Whereupon  Brienne  had  the  two 
decrees  registered  in  a  ///  de  justice^  and  exiled  the 
Parlement  to  Troyes.  "~~ 

^      The,  exile  of  the  Paris  Parlement  was  followed  by 

'One  is  astonished  to  find  how  glibly  and  frequently  the  men  of  these 
years  used  the  word  "revolution.".  On  all  sides  it  was  apparently  held  to  be 
synonymous  with  millennium. 


Bankruptcy  and  the  States  General       109 

resolutions  of  all  the  provincial  Parlements  calling  for 
the  States  General,  and  complaining  bitterly  against 
the  present  helplessness  of  the  one  body  having  even 
a  semblance  of  a  constitutional  check  upon  the  ex- 
travagance and  violence  of  the  court.  And  this 
universal  outcry,  coupled  with  his  need  of  funds,  com- 
pelled Brienne  to  patch  up  a  bargain  with  the  Paris 
Parlement.  In  accordance  with  this,  the  Parlement 
returned  to  the  capital,  and  registered  a  loan  for 
eighty-eight  million  dollars;  the  vacillating  govern- 
ment recalled  the  two  tax  edicts  and  promised  that 
the  States  General  should  be  summoned  in  four  years. 

But  the  struggle  still  continued,  the  Parlement  now 
refusing  to  register  edicts  and  now  passing  decrees 
over  the  king's  cancellations.     Affairs  grew  desperate. 

Brienne  and  his  counselors  bethought  themselves 
of  the  coup  d'  dtat  of  Maupeou,  and  determined  to  sup- 
press the  Parlement  of  Paris,  or  at  least  abridge  its 
powers.  In  place  of  its  having  supreme  registering 
powers,  these  were  to  reside  in  a  plenary  court  com- 
posed of  persons  appointed  by  the  king,  while  subor- 
dinate courts  were  to  replace  the  Parlements  of  the 
provinces.  But  before  this  decree  had  been  sent  to 
Parlement,  that  body  drew  up  a  declaration  of  what 
it  judged  were  the  elements  of  the  French  constitu- 
tion. Chief  among  the  propositions  of  this  extraor- 
dinary document  was  the  right  of  the  nation  to  grant 
subsidies  through  the  States  General. 

And  here  we  see  the  evolution  of  theoretical  nation-  \ 
alism  completed.   As  an  historical  statement  the  claim  j 
was  impossible.    For  a  hundred  and  seventy-five  years 
taxes  had  been  levied  and  paid  without  a  thought  of 


no  The  French  Revolution 

the  States  General,  and  in  point  of  fact  they  had  been 
summoned  only  fifteen  times  since  their  first  meeting 
in  1302.  But  as  an  expression  of  what  the  govern- 
ment of  France  ought  to  be  if  a  people's  political 
theory  were  to  be  realized,  the  statement  was  al- 
most the  French  Declaration  of  Independence. 

Brienne,  it  is  true,  used  force  and  got  his  edict 
registered,  but  the  storm  it  raised  was  too  great  for 
him.  The  Paris  Parlement  became  the  center  of 
wildest  popularity.  Thirty  thousand  people,  according 
to  Jefferson,  surrounded  the  Parlement  house  cheering 
its  favorites.  The  great  court  of  theXlhatelet  pro- 
nounced the  edict  invalid;  the  Parlement  at  Rennes 
declared  any  member  of  the  new  court  "infamous" ; 
at  Grenoble  a  mob  of  citizens  rose  to  protect  their 
magistrates  against  two  regiments  of  soldiers,  and  the 
soldiers  themselves,  incited  by  the  nobility,  refused 
to  fire  upon  the  crowd ;  in  Dauphin^  the  military  com- 
mandant was  plainly  told  he  could  not  count  upon  his 
troops  to  execute  the  edicts.  The  very  bishops  pro- 
tested, and  demanded  in  their  turn  the  States  General. 
Abandoned  by  the  clergy,  disobeyed  by  the  army, 
fought  by  the  Parlements  and  the  courts,  hated  by 
the  nation,  Brienne  yielded,  and  resigned,  through  the 
queen's  favor  to  be  consoled  by  the  money  he  had 
made  and  the  gift  of  a  cardinal's  hat.  But  even  be- 
fore this  had  happened,  on  July  5th,  Louis  had  called 
on  learned  societies  to  tell  him  how  the  States 
General  should  be  chosen  and  organized,  and  on 
August  8,  1788,  by  an  order  of  the  Council,  suspended 
the  Plenary  Court,  and  convoked  the  States  General 
for  May  i,  1789. 


^13 


PART   III 

THE    ATTEMPT    AT    CONSTITUTIONAL    MON- 
ARCHY 


CHAPTER    IX 

THE  STATES  GENERAL  AND  THE  EVOLUTION  OF 
THE  NATIONAL  ASSEMBLY 

I.  The  Results  of  the  Revolution  thus  far  Noticeable.  II.  Dif- 
ficulties Confronting  Necker:  i.  Bankruptcy;  2.  The  States 
General;  3.  The  French  Character;  4.  Agricultural  Dis- 
tress. III.  The  Elections  to  the  States  General;  i.  Method; 
2.  Difficulties.  IV.  The  States  General:  i.  The  Deputies; 
2.  Their  Spirit;  3.  Its  Opening  Session.  V.  The  Evolu- 
tion of  the  National  Assembly:   i.  The  Struggle  over  the 

,  Voting;   2.  The  Organization  of  the  National  Assembly; 

^.  The  Tactics  of  the  Court;  4.  The  Oath  of  the  Tennis 
Court;  5.  The  Royal  Session;  6.  The  Triumph  of  the 
Third  Estate. 

*'I  think,"  wrote  Thomas  Jefferson  from  Paris  in 
May,  1788,  "that  in  the  course  of  three  months  the 
royal  authority  has  lost  and  the  rights  of  the  people 
gained  as  much  ground,  by  a  revolution  of  public 
opinion  only,  as  England  gained  in  all  her  civil  wars 

General  Literature  in  English.— A  brilliant  account  of  the  States 
General  and  its  evolution  into  the  National  Assembly  is  that  of  Carlyle, 
French  Revolution,  bk.  iv,  ch.  4,  bk.  v,  chs.  i,  2.  A  very  detailed  account, 
with  brief  biographical  sketches,  is  to  be  found  in  McCarthy,  French  Revo- 
lution, I,  chs.  27-^.  Other  acounts  are  to  be  found  in  Watson,  Story  of 
France,  II,  ch.  8;  Thiers,  History  of  the  French  Revolution,  I,  35-52. 

The  literature  on  the  Revolution,  even  in  English,  is  vast.  Mignet, 
French  Revolution,  and  Michelet,  French  Revolution,  are  almost  classical 
hand-books.    From  the  socialistic  point  of  view  are  Gronlund,  Ca  Ira^  and 


no  The  French  Revolution 

*'under  the  Stuarts.'  And  later  he  wrote  that  he 
believed  that  the  nation,  "within  two  or  three  years, 
would  be  in  the  enjoyment  of  a  tolerably  free  con- 
stitution, and  that  without  it  having  cost  them  a 
drop  of  blood."  The  same  enthusiasm  filled  France, 
from  the  ignorant  peasantry,  who  thought  that  they 
were  "to  be  relieved  of  all  taxes  and  that  the  first 
two  orders  would  alone  provide  for  all  the  needs  of 
the  state,  "^  to  Louis  himself,  who  looked  forward 
to  the  moment  in  which  he  should  find  himself 
"surrounded  by  the  representatives  of  a  generous  and 
faithful  nation."  To  fill  the  cup  of  France's  joy  to 
the  full,  Necker,  the  very  genius  (so  men  thought)  of 
finance  and  reform,  was  recalled. 
^y^he  financial  problem  which  now  confronted 
Necker  was  far  more  serious  than  that  of  his  first 
administration.     Bankruptcy  had  been  seriously  con- 

Bax,  French  Revolution.  Watson's  work  is  unconventional,  not  scliolarly, 
but  very  readable.  Van  Laun,  Revolutionary  EPocli,  presents  the  tradi- 
tional views.  Carlyle's  celebrated  work  is  best  read  after  one  has  gained 
some  knowledge  of  the  events.  Stephens'  History  of  the  French  Revolution 
is  the  best  in  English,  but  only  two  volumes  (through  the  year  1793)  '^^^^  ^P" 
peared.  Von  Sybel's  voluminous  work  (4  volsj  is  a  mine  of  information, 
but  could  not  have  been  intended  to  be  read.  Thiers  is  voluminous  and  not 
impartial.  Taine,  The  French  Revolution,  is  brilliant,  and  furnishes  infinite 
details,  but  is  bitterly  opposed  to  the  Revolution.  Good  modern  hand-books 
are  those  by  Gardiner,  Morris,  Rose,  Stephens  {Revolutionary  Europe), 
The  last  three  cover  also  the  Napoleonic  period.  James  Stephens*  Lectures 
on  the  French  Revolution,  are  among  the  oest  of  the  older  literature. 

The  early  portion  of  the  Revolution  is  profoundly  discussed  by  Von 
Hoist,  The  French  Revolution  Tested  by  Mirabeau's  Career,  and  interestingly 
by  McCarthy,  The  French  Revolution.  A  very  valuable  collection  of  .con- 
temporary American  notes  is  to  be  found  in  Hazen,  American  Opinion  of 
the  French  Revolution  (Johns  Hopkins  Un.  Press). 

'^Yi^zQn,  American  Opinion  of  the  French  Revolution,  30-34;  Jefferson, 
Works^  II,  257,  seq.;  469-70.  The  letters  of  Jefferson  during  these  years  are 
well  worth  considering  quite  as  much  from  their  mistaken  as  from  their  true 
judgments.  That  he  should  have  favored  every  change  of  Brienne's  admin- 
istration shows  one  of  two  things:  either  Brienne  was  not  as  weak  as  his- 
torians have  pictured  him,  or  the  true  path  was  so  clouded  that  not  even 
Jefferson  could  see  it  plainly.  Mirabeau  seems  about  the  only  man  of  clear 
vision  during  the  period, 

'One  is  here  reminded  of  the  promises  of  Henry  IV.  of  France,  and  of 
the  Utopia  expected  by  the  negroes  of  the  South  when  emancipation  would 
give  each  of  them  "ten  acres  and  a  mule." 


Evolution  of  the  National  Assembly      T13 

templated  by  Brienne,  and  as  early  as  October,  1787, 
Arthur  Young  reports  that  the  question  was  every- 
where discussed  "whether  a  bankruptcy  would  occa- 
sion civil  war  and  a  total  over  throw  of  the  govern- 
ment. "  ^ 

But  another  question  confronted  the  redoubtable- 
Genevese:  How  should  the  States  General  be  elected? 
It  is  not  without  a  humorous  element,  this  mad  race  on 
the  part  of  a  nation  after  an  Assembly  that  had  been 
only  a  remembrance  to  the  grandfathers  of  their 
great-grandfathers,  and  the  despair  of  a  king  calling 
upon  academies  and  savants  to  tell  him  how  to  get 
together  the  Assembly  he  had  promised  solemnly 
should  meet  on  a  certain  day!  But  another  difficulty 
confronted  Necker,  which  neither  he  nor  any  person 
could  successfully  meet.  And  that  was  the  character 
of  the  very  people  who  clamored  for  liberty  and  the 
States  General.  Among  the  masses  there  was  bru- 
tality, ignorance,  and  the  utter  absence  of  any  great 
conservative  ideals;  among  the  courtiers  there  was 
little  except  frivolity,  debauchery,  delightful  manners, 
and  monumental  selfishness;  among  the  intellect- 
ual classes  there  was,  it  is  true,  great  liberality  of 
thought  and  elevated  theories,  but,  though  with  many 
notable  exceptions,  little  conservative  morality,  and 
much  loquacious  dilettantism.  Despite  his  apprecia- 
tion of  the  rise  of  a  liberal  public  opinion,  and  despite 
the  results  it  had  reached,   Jefferson  did   not  judge 

*The  answer  most  commonly  given  was  that  such  a  measure  would  cer- 
tainly not  occasion  either,  if  conducted  by  a  man  of  abilities,  vigor,  and 
firmness.  But,  as  Young  himself  declared,  the  man  was  wanting  among  all 
the  ministers,  past  or  present.  Gouverneur  Morris  noticed  the  same  aston- 
ishing lack.  "Gods,"  he  exclaims,  "what  a  theater  this  is  lor  a  first-rate 
character!"  Hazen,  American  Opinion,  etc.,  66,  gives  others  of  his  opinions 
to  the  same  effect. 


114  The  French  Revolution 

the  nation  in  1788  to  be  sensible  of  the  value  of  trial 
by  jury,  or  politically  ripe  to  accept  even  the  English 
habeas  corpus  law.  "The  people  at  large^"  he  wrote 
Mrs.  Adams  in  1787,  "view  every  object  only  as  it 
may  furnish  puns  and  bon-mots;  and  I  pronounce  that 
a  good  punster  would  disarm  the  whole  nation  were 
they  ever  so  seriously  determined  to  revolt."  As  if 
w^there  were  not  enough  difficulties  for  any  reformer, 
^nature  itself  turned  upon  France.  The  harvest  of 
1788  was  fearfully  damaged  by  a  tornado,  while  the 
winter  of  1788-89  was  of  unprecedented  severity. 
The  Seine  was  frozen  for  two  months,  the  government 
had  to  maintain  huge  fires  throughout  Paris  to  keep 
the  poor  from  freezing,  while  bread  became  so  scarce 
that  the  bakers  were  allowed  to  sell  only  a  small 
amount  to  any  one  person;  and  even  among  the  rich, 
guests  were  expected  to  bring  their  own  bread  to 
dinner.  As  a  result  of  this  distress,  the  peasants 
grew  desperate,  and  thousands  flocked  to  the  cities, 
and  especially  to  Paris,  there  to  swell  the  brutal 
proletariat. 
y  To  advise  as  to  methods  of  electing  the  States 
General  the  Notables  were  again  summoned,  but  with- 
out satisfactory  results,  and  Necker  was  left  to  his 
own  devices.  As  a  result,  there  was  issued,  January 
24,  1789,  an  Order  in  Council  providing  that  the  States 
General  should  consist  of  one  thousand  members,  one 
half  of  whom  should  be  from  the  Third  Estate,  the 
other  half  to  be  drawn  equally  from  the  two  other 
orders.  This  double  representation  had  been  given 
the  order  by  the  king  "because  ii:s  cause  was  allied 
with  generous  sentiments,  and   would   always  obtain 


Evolution  of  the  National  Assembly     115 

the  support  of  public  opinion. "  Although  the  number 
of  deputies  was  later  increased,  the  proportions 
remained  the  same.  The  order  provided  also  that  the 
unit  of  election  should  be  the  bailliage^  or  county,  and 
that  each  bailliage  should  elect  a  number  of  deputies 
to  the  States  General  proportionate  to  its  population.^ 
A  system  of  election  was  devised  more  complicated 
than  that  by  which  American  citizens  elect  their  Presi- 
dent. When  one  recalls  that  this  was  laid  upon  a  nation 
ignorant  of  the  most  rudimentary  processes  of  repre- 
sentative government,^  that  jn  addition  to  thej:£guIaB. 
deputies  alternates  had  also  to_be_cJiasgn,  and  that  at 

each     stage     of      the     ^l^^^-rir]^]     p|-Qp<^gr     inrfmnfinwn  i>r>r 

cahiers^  had  to  be  drawn  up  to  be  forwarded  to  the  next 
electoral  body,  the  wonder  is  that  the  elections  could 
have  been  conducted  at  all.  As  it  was,  all  the  provinces 
were  by  no  means  content  to  adopt  the  prescribed  plan, 
and  in  some  cases,  notably  that  of  Brittany,  were  so 
vehement  in  their  opposition  that  special  decrees  had 
to  be  issued  in  their  behalf.  It  is  indeed  hard  to  see 
how  the  electoral  process  could 'have  been  carried 
through   had   it  not  been   for   the   invaluable   advice 

'The  method  of  election  of  the  delegates  from  the  two  upper  orders  was 
simple.  The  noblesse  and  clergy,  with  feudal  holdings,  met  in  the  electoral 
assembly  of  (iv^x-^  bailliage,  in  which  they  owned  fiefs  andelected  their  depu- 
ties. The  curates- could  also  appear  at  the  electoral  assembly  and  vote  in 
person.  It  was  this  fact  that  gave  the  States  General  such  a  large  propor- 
tion of  curates  among  the  clerical  deputies.  They  had  simply  Qutvoted  the 
bishops  at  the  electoral  assembly  of  the  bailliage.  Far  more  cumbersome 
was  the  method  prescribed  for  the  Third  Estate.  The  towns  and  villages 
elected  delegates  to  the  electoral  assembly  of  their  bailliage.  Those  thus 
elected  met  at  the  appointed  place  and  reduced  themselves  to  one-fourth 
their  original  number,  and  this  one-fourth  elected  the  deputies  to  the  States 
General.  But  even  this  process  was  complicated  in  cities,  where  ancient 
guilds  elected  representatives  to  the  town  electoral  assembly,  which  in  its 
turn  elected  delegates  to  the  electoral  assembly  of  the  bailliage. 

'^Brienne,  it  is  true,  had  attempted  to  inaugurate  provincial  Assemblies, 
whose  members  should,  in  the  process  of  time,  be  elected,  but  the  edict  had 
not  been  given  sufficient  time  and  trial  to  vitiate  the  statement  in  the  text. 


ii6  The  French  Revolution 

given  all  parts  of  France  by  the  Assembly  of  Dauphin^, 
of  which  Jean  Joseph  Mounier  was  president. 

The  personnel  of  the  body  thus  elected,  though 
good,  was  by  no  means  extraordinary.  It  is  impossible 
to  give  the  exact  number  there  present,  but  the  most 
likely  figures  are  these :  The  clergy,  308 ;  the  noblesse, 
285,  and  the  Third  Estate,  621.  It  will  be  seen,  there- 
fore, that  the  number  of  the  Third  Estate  was  greater 
than  that  of  the  other  two  combined.  The  temper  of 
vthe  Assembly  was,  on  the  whole,  liberal.  Of  the  308 
clergy,  though  the  bishops  were  well  represented,  205 
were  curates.  Two  shades  of  political  faith  were 
represented  in  the  ranks  of  the  nobility;  there  was 
the  liberalism  of  La  Fayette,  and  the  obstinate  con- 
servatism of  "  Barren "  Mirabeau,  the  brother  of  the 
count.  Of  the  621  delegates  who  composed  the  Third 
Estate,  two-thirds  were  lawyers  or  legal  officials — 
a  most  important  fact;  many  of  them,  also,  were 
scholars.  Only  ten  of  them  can  possibly  be  consid- 
ered as  belonging  to  the  lower  classes.  It  will  be  seen, 
therefore,  as  a  whole  that  the  States  General  repre- 
sented the  well-to-do  classes.  It  was  not  in  the  least 
an  uncultured  rabble,  but  was  made  up  of  the  best 
blood  in  France.^ 

The  desires  of  this  highly  intelligent  body  are  to 
be  found  in  overwhelming  detail  in  the  cahiers,  or 
instructions,  which  their  constituencies  had  given 
them.     From  these  it  appears  that,  on  the  whole,  each 

^Accounts  of  this  election  are  given  in  Stephens,  The  French  Revolution, 
I,  ch.  1;  Taine,  French  Revolution,  I,  bk.  i;  McCarthy,  French  Revolution, 
I,  ch.  2j;  Cherest,  La  Chute  de  lAncien  Regime,  II  (very  detailed).  The 
original  material  will  be  found  in  the  Archives  Parlementaires ;  Bouchez  et 
Roiix,  Histoire  Parlementaire ;  and  in  the  Moniteur  (original),  introductory 
volume. 


Evolution  of  the  National  Assembly      117 

of  the  three  orders  was  anxious  to  give  the  state 
reforms,  and  may  very  fairly  be  considered  as  desirous 
of  embodying  in  some  form  of  constitution  the  spirit 
which  had  forced  Louis  and  his  ministers  to  summon 
the  body.^  So  far  as  revolution  is  concerned,  it  is 
evident  from  many  facts  that  the  States  General 
regarded  a  revolution  as  already  in  progress,  and  con- 
sidered itself  as  its  product  rather  than  its  first  step. 
Mirabeau  has  left  the  statement  that  "there  was  not 
one  commoner  who  did  not  come  with  very  moderate 
sentiments  to  the  National  Assembly." 

In  nothing  was  the  incompetence  of  Necker  more 
clearly  shown  than  in  his  refusal  to  decide  in  advance 
whether  the  new  body  should  vote,  as  in  1614,  by 
order  or  by  member.  The  question  was  more  than 
parliamentary.  To  vote  by  order  {^par  ordre)  was  to 
maintain  only  a  sort  of  corporate  representation,  in 
which  the  doubled  memj^ership  of  the  Third  Estate 
would  have  but  one  vote  to  the  privileged  orders'  two; 
to  vote  by  member  {^par  tete)  was  to  establish  true 
representation  an^d  to  give  France  a  genuine  national 
assembly,  in  which  the  Third  Estate  might  outvote 
the  other  two. 

Throughout  the  spring  of  1789  the  newly  elected 
deputies  began  to  arrive  in  Versailles,  where  those  of 
the  Third  Estate,  at  least,  would  have  suffered  at  the 
hands  of  extortionate  landlords  had  the  government 
not  established  legal  rates.  On  May  4th,  amid  the  blare 
of  trumpets,  along  streets  lined  with  rich  tapestries 
hanging  from  windows  crowded  with  spectators,  the 

*  A  good  summary  of  these  cahiers  is  given  in  Lowell,  Eve  of  the  French 
Revolution,  and  are  treated  in  detail  in  Chassin,  Les  Cahiers.  They  are 
printed  in  full  in  the  Archives  Parlementaires,  l-VI. 


ii8  The  French  Revolution 

delegates  of  the  three  estates  marched  in  procession 
to  the  Church  of  St.  Louis,  to  attend  mass  and  listen 
to  an  eloquent  sermon.  The  newspapers  of  the  day 
contain  elaborate  directions,  drawn  up  by  the  royal 
master  of  ceremonies,  as  to  how  the  deputies  should 
dress  and  march.  First  went  the  Third  Estate,  in 
black  clothes,  white  neckties,  and  three-cornered 
black  hats  (which  were  to  be  inexorably  buttonless) ; 
then  the  nobility,  with  their  gorgeous  court  dress  (the 
Duke  of  Orleans,  the  enemy  of  his  cousin  the  king, 
ostentatiously  walking  ahead  of  his  order,  close  to 
the  last  of  the  commoners) ;  then  the  higher  clergy, 
in  magnificent  pontificals;  then  the  curates,  a  mass  of 
somber  black;  and  last  of  all  the  king  and  the  court. 
A  grand  spectacle — but  what  were  they  all  to  do? 
Save  France,  fervently  thought  they,  and  the  king, 
and  Necker.  But  how?  And  so  far  as  one  can  dis- 
cover, not  a  soul  among  the  twelve  hundred  saviors 
knew. 

Incredible  as  it  appears,  Necker  was  just  as  igno- 
rant.' This  the  first  meeting  of  the  body  showed,  when 
Monday,  May  5th,  it  gathered  in  the  Salle  des  Menus ^ 
which  had  been  splendidly  prepared  to  receive  it. 
With  elaborate  and,  to  the  commoners,  exasperating 
formality,  the  delegates  found  their  places.  After 
a  couple  of  hours'  delay  the  king  took  his  seat  upon 
a  throne  covered  with  fleur-de-lis.  As  the  great  meet- 
ing became  silent,  he  arose  and  delivered  a  well- 
intentioned  speech,  which  was  received  so  cordially 
that  Gouverneur  Morris  felt  tears  start  from  his  eyes 

^Though  it  is  true  he  seems  to  have  had  some  fantastic  notion  of  arrang- 
ing the  nobles  and  the  clergy  into  an  upper  and  the  Third  Estate  into  a 
lower  house. 


Evolution  of  the  National  Assembly      119 

in  spite  of  himself.^  He  was  followed  by  the  Master 
of  the  Seals,  who  succeeded  in  showing  the  genuine 
willingness  of  Louis  for  moderate  reforms,  and 
in  saying  that  the  nation  was  in  debt,  and  that  the 
States  General  had  been  assembled  to  see  that  it  was 
got  out  of  debt.  Necker  then  read,  or  caused  his 
clerk  to  read,  a  speech  which  contained  much  infor- 
mation and  "many  things  very  fine,"  but  was  three 
hours  long.  In  fact,  he  bored  everybody,  and  so 
much  less  interested  was  he  in  reforms  than  in  the 
deficit  that  he  disappointed  every  liberal.  But  the 
king  went  back  to  his  palace  thoroughly  content,  cer- 
tain that  the  end  of  his  difficulties  had  come. 

When  the  States  General  assembled  on  May  6th  to 
hold  its  first  business  session,  it  was  at  once  con- 
fronted by  the  question  as  to  whether  the  voting  was 
to  be  par  ordre  ox  par  tHe.  The  difficulty  first  appeared 
in  the  necessity  of  verifying  the  delegates'  credentials. 
The  nobles  proceeded  at  once  to  verify  as  a  separate 
chamber,  the  vote  standing  188  to  47;  while  the 
clergy,  though  voting  133  to  114  to  verify  as  an  order, 
did  not  proceed  to  organize  as  such.  This  attitude 
of  the  two  orders  was  a  legitimate  outcome  of  the 
Old  Regime.  The  fraction  of  a  great  people  which 
had  enjoyed  where  others  had  lost  privileges,  was 
now  endeavoring  to  block  all  reform  by  continuing  to 
oppose  itself  to  the  nation.  It  was  the  last  ditch  in 
which  monopoly  could  fight.  But  the  Third  Estate 
refused  even  to  verify  credentials  until  it  had  been 

'Gouverneur  Morris  says  that  when  Louis  sat  down  he  put  on  his  hat. 
The  nobles  did  the  same,  and  so  did  some  of  the  commoners,  though  they 
took  them  off  again.  Then  Louis  took  his  off.  Whereupon  the  queen  took 
him  to  account.  Morris  thought  the  two  discussed  the  matter  then  and 
there,  but  says  he  cannot  "swear  to  this." 


I20  The  French  Revolution 

decided  that  the  three  estates  were  to  meet  in  one 
indivisible  assembly.  May  nth  it  declared  itself 
simply  a  collection  of  citizens  without  organization, 
without  credentials,  without  legal  existence.'  For 
weeks  both  sides  obstinately  sought  to  win  over  the 
other,  and  compromise  became  every  day  the  more 
impossible.  Business  evidently  was  out  of  the  ques- 
tion under  such  conditions,  and  May  28th  the  king 
interfered,  commanding  the  three  estates  to  verify 
separately.  But  matters  had  gone  too  far  for  such  a 
command  to  be  obeyed.  Mirabeau  moved  to  invite  the 
clergy  "in  the  name  of  the  God  of  Peace"  to  join  the 
commons.  The  curates  wavered.  Introduced  by  Mira- 
beau, Si^y^s,  the  framer  of  nearly  every  constitution 
that  France  had  during  his  life,  on  June  loth,  moved 
that  a  committee  inform  the  clergy  and  the  nobles  that 
the  Third  Estate  summoned  them  for  the  last  time; 
that  on  the  next  day  its  members  would  begin  to  verify 
not  as  an  estate,  but  as  the  representatives  of  the  nation. 
The  clergy  wavered  still  more.  On  June  nth  the 
process  of  verification  of  these  self-styled  representa- 
tives of  the  nation  began.  Two  days  later  the  curates 
began  to  come  over.  On  June  17th,  the  slowly 
swelling  company  of  commoners  and  curates  adopted 
the  name  National  Assembly^  and  France,  if  only  French- 
men would  recognize  it,  ceased  to  be  under  the  control 
of  absolutism. 

But  all  Frenchmen  could  not  see  it,  and  there  began 
a  struggle  of  the  National  Assembly  for  its  existence. 
It  is  not  difficult  to  understand  the  opposition  of  the 

*The  first  speech  of  Mirabeau  the  Monitgur  reports  is  on  May  5th,  oppos- 
ing even  the  appoiDtment  of  a  committee  for  conference  with  the  nobles. 


Evolution  of  the  National  Assembly      121 

nobility.  The  court  party  could  not  see  into  the 
future,  but  could  see  in  all  the  actions  of  the  Third 
Estate  supreme  presumption.  They  applied  to  the 
king,  and  persuaded  him  to  undertake  to  bring  about 
by  force  what  they  had  not  been  able  to  accomplish 
by  argument.  Had  they  been  content  with  this  plan, 
they  would  have  made  a  sufficiently  great  mistake, 
but  blindness  and  insolence  hurried  on  that  which 
they  had  too  little  foresight  even  to  fear. 

Their  method  of  warfare  was  worthy  of  their  fri- 
volity. Oh  the  20th  of  June,  when  the  Third  Estate, 
or  National  Assembly,  came  to  its  hall  it  found  the 
doors  closed  and  guarded  by  troops.  Notice  for  the 
first  time  was  then  served  upon  it  by  the  master  of 
ceremonies  that  there  was  to  be  a  special  royal  session 
on  the  next  day  but  one,  and  that  the  hall  must  be 
closed  for  the  accommodation  of  the  carpenters. 

It  was  a  clever  plan,  but  it  miscarried.  The  com- 
moners marched  to  a  great  building  in  the  neighborhood 
of  the  palace — a  public  tennis-court,  standing  yet,  in 
a  back  street  in  Versailles,  at  once  the  Runnymede 
and  the  Independence  Hall  of  France.  There,  in  the 
unfurnished  room,  amidst  intense  excitement,  with 
upstretched  hands  they  solemnly  swore  never  to 
separate  until  they  had  drawn  up  a  constitution  for 
France.* 

Yet  to  the  king  and  the  court  all  this  was  but 
a  name  and  a  joke.  Third  Estate  or  National 
Assembly,  Salle  des  Menus  or  tennis-court,  it  was  all  the 
same.     The  commoners  must  yield.     On  the  23d  of 

^The  oath  and  its  signatures  are  still  to  be  seen  in  the  archives  of 
France.  See  for  full  discussion,  Fling,  "The  Oath  of  the  Tennis  Court," 
in  Nebraska  University  Studies,  II,  No  3  (Oct.  1899). 


i^*»  J  The  French  Revolution 

Jurfe  thff  royal  session  was  held.  In  the  meantime 
one  hundred  and  forty-nine  of  the  clergy  had  joined 
the  National  Assembly.  This  in  itself  was  enough  to 
confirm  its  independent  spirit,  but  the  vain,  stupid 
malice  of  the  court  party  hastened  events.  The  com- 
mons, when  they  came  to  the  royal  session,  found  the 
hall  surrounded  by  soldiers,  and  were  forced  to  wait 
in  the  rain  until  the  other  estates  had  been  granted 
admission.  Even  if  they  had  forgotten  Maupeou  and 
Brienne,  events  could  well  suggest  a  coup  d'etat.  The 
nobles  expected  a  ready  if  unwilling  submfssion.  The 
king  commanded  the  estates  to  separate,  and  to  meet 
in  separate  chambers  and  there  deliberate.  He 
emphatically  asserted  his  determination,  in  case  of 
hopeless  disagreement  between  the  three  orders,  to 
carry  on  the  work  of  reform  alone.  He  further 
declared  that  all  reform  should  leave  the  army,  feudal 
dues,  and  the  tithes  untouched.  The  session  was  an 
illustration  of  the  character  and  policy  of  Louis.  From 
the  time  he  dismissed  Turgot  he  was  always  behind 
events.  Such  strong  words  might  perhaps  have  done 
six  weeks  before,  but  since  the  coming  of  the  clergy 
the  union  of  the  orders  was  inevitable.  To  prevent 
it  was  to  attempt  the  impossible. 

Instantly  the  new  position  of  the  Third  Estate,  or 
the  National  Assembly,  was  apparent.  The  king  left 
the  hall.  The  nobility  and  a  part  of  the  clergy  retired 
to  their  chambers.  The  commoners  remained  in  their 
seats.  It  was  an  act  of  disobedience.  Br^ze,  master 
of  ceremonies,  said,  ''Messieurs,  you  have  heard  the 
king's  orders. "  It  was  one  of  the  few  critical  seconds 
in  history.     To  leave  the  hall  would  have  been  to  give 


Evolution  of  the  National  Assembly      123 

up  all  claims  of  representing  the  people;  to  stay  meant 
disobedience  of  the  king's  express  command  and 
probable  punishment.  The  deputies  wavered.  But 
just  at  this  moment  Mirabeau  arose,  and  in  his  tre- 
mendous voice  addressed  the  master  of  ceremonies: 
"Yes,  Monsieur,  we  have  heard  what  the  king  has  said; 
but  do  you,  who  cannot  be  the  interpreter  of  his  orders 
to  the  States  General ;  do  you,  who  have  right  neither 
to  be  here  nor  to  speak  here — do  you  tell  those  who 
sent  you  that  we  are  here  by  the  will  of  the  people, 
and  that  we  will  not  leave  our  places  except  at  the 
point  of  the  bayonet."^  Thunderstruck  Brez^  left 
the  room  and  the  huge  Mirabeau,  as  he  was  accustomed 
to  leave  the  king,  backward. 

But  the  position  of  the  commoners  had  become 
critical.  They  were  no  longer  mere  reformers;  they 
were  rebels.  They  had  deliberately  disobeyed  the 
command  of  the  king.  Immediately,  upon  motion  of 
Mirabeau,  they  voted  by  an  overwhelming  majority 
that  the  persons  of  the  members  of  the  National 
Assembly  were  inviolable,  and  proceeded  to  business  as 
before.  For  a  day  or  two,  it  is  true,  it  looked  as  if  the 
Assembly  might  be  crushed  by  soldiery.  But  Louis, 
good-natured  and  vacillating,  was  no  man  to  keep  up 
a  struggle,  and  within  four  days  after  he  had  com- 
manded the  estates  to  vote  par  ordre^  he  had  com- 
manded the  two  upper  estates  to  unite  with  the  third 
and  to  vote  par  tete.  They,  more  obedient  than  the 
commons,  yielded,  though  with  protests,  one  noble, 
it  is  said,  assembling  for  weeks  quite  by  himself.      On 

*There  are  various  versions  of  this  story,  but  they  seem  to  agree  in  the 
main  facts  here  given.  The  precise  words  of  Mirabeau  are  also  hopelesBly 
lost,  but  not  their  general  sense. 


124  The  French  Revolution 

the  27th  of  June  the  union  of  the  three  estates  was 
complete.  The  States  General  had  vanished,  and  in 
its  place  had  arisen  the  National  Constituent  Assem- 
bly, the  first  truly  representative  body  that  France  had 
ever  known.  And  this  new  assembly  had  had  its  ori- 
gin in  disobedience  to  the  king,  had  voted  its  members 
inviolable,  had  taken  solemn  oath  to  give  France  a 
constitution.  Without  a  leader  and  without  a  pro- 
gramme could  it  evolve  an  efficient  government,  and 
would  the  king  and  court  recognize  its  self-determined 
powers?  In  the  answer  given  by  events  to  these  ques- 
tions lay  the  future  of  the  movement  so  auspiciously 
begun. 


CHAPTER    X 

THE   UPRISING   OF   THE    MASSES^ 

i 
I.  The  New  Coup  d'Etat  Planned  by  the  Court:  i.  Paris  and 
the  Parisians;  2.  The  Plans  of  the  Court;  3.  The  Dismissal 
of  Necker.  II.  The  Search  for  Arms.  III.  The  Surrender 
of  the  Bastille:  i.  The  Bastille;  2.  The  "Capture";  3.  The 
Subsequent  Lynchings.  IV.  The  Effect  and  Significance 
of  the  Fall  of  the  Bastille:  i.  The  First  Emigration;  2.  The 
New  Institutions;  3.  Uprisings  throughout  France;  4.  The 
Rise  of  the  Nation.    V.  The  Impotence  of  Government. 

The  development  within  the  sphere  of  constitu- 
tional government  did  not  represent  the  only  phase  of 
the  revolution  through  which  France  was  consciously 
and  exultingly  passing.  In  closest  union  with  it  was 
the  upheaval  among  the  masses.  For  years  discon- 
tent had  been  working  in  France,  and  at  times  had 
been  with  great  difficulty  suppressed.  Yet  the  masses 
had  as  yet  been  of  no  very  great  influence  in  the  new 
movement.  That  they  should  now  assert  themselves 
was  due  to  the  collapse  of  absolutism  and  the  conse- 
quent impotence  of  the  government,  but  more  spe- 
cifically to  a  second  attempt  on  the  part  of  Louis  and 
the  court  to  suppress  the  National  Assembly.  And 
this  within  a  week  after  the  failure  of  the  blustering 
royal  session  of  June  23d. 

'On  the  fall  of  the  Bastille,  see  Stephens,  French  Revolution,  I,  ch.  5; 
McCarthy,  French  Revolution,  1,  chs.  4^-46;  Watson,  Story  of  France,  II,  ch. 
10;  Michelet,  History  of  the  French  Revolution  (Bohn  ed.),  132-160.  For 
complete  treatment,  see  Dussiiulx,  De  V Insurrection  Parisienne  et  de  la 
Prise  de  la  Bastille,  and  Bond  La  Prise  de  la  Bastille.  See  also  the  mass 
of  original  material  in  Archives  Parlementaires,  and  Moniteur  (reprint)    I. 

"5 


126  The  French  Revolution 

There  had  been  disorder  throughout  the  country 
from  the  time  the  States  General  had  been  summoned, 
but,  though  the  expression  of  hatred  of  ancient 
abuses  and  capable  of  almost  any  growth,  it  was  not 
of  sufficient  importance  to  call  for  more  than  men- 
tion. For  the  first  emergence  of  truly  revolutionary 
violence  one  must  look  to  Paris. 

Paris  in  1789  was  by  no  means  the  beautiful  city  of 
to-day.  Its  streets  were  narrow,  crooked,  and  dirty. 
Its  population  was  without  community  of  spirit  and 
its  government  was  inefficient  and  venal.  During  the 
past  few  months  of  want  it  had  attracted  crowds  of 
beggars  and  desperate  men  from  all  parts  of  France, 
and  its  lower  classes  were  incomparably  brutalized. 
Order  had  been  kept  with  difficulty,  and  the  fatai  lack 
of  the  police  force  of  a  modern  city  was  evidenj|d  in 
the  impunity  with  which  a  mob  could  sack  ajpeat 
establishment  like  that  of  the  papermaker  Revfeillon 
(April  27,  1789).  Morris  may  have  looked  on  its'char- 
acter  with  too  puritanical  eyes,  but  his  words  are  cer- 
tainly explicit:  "Paris  is  perhaps  as  wicked  a  spot  as 
exists.  Incest,  murder,  bestiality,  fraud,  rapine, 
oppression,  baseness,  cruelty,  are  common."  Yet 
there  was  no  place  in  all  France  where  the  new  philos- 
ophy had  struck  so  deep  or  had  grown  so  radical; 
and  the  priests  of  the  new  cult,  the  apostles  of  the 
newly  discovered  rights,  were  the  journalists. 

Never  was  there  such  a  turbulent  flood  of  pam- 
phlets and  newspapers  and  books.^  Good-natured^  phil- 
osophical, agricultural  Arthur  Young  was  astonished 
at  it.     On  the  9th  of  June,    1789,   he  went  into  the 

'The  Revolutions  de  Paris  had  a  circulation  of  200,000. 


The  Uprising  of  the  Masses  127 

Palais  Royal,  the  rendezvous  of  booksellers,  travelers, 
newsmongers,  and  scamps,  to  procure  a  catalogue  of 
the  new  publications.  He  discovered  that  every  hour 
produced  something  new;  thirteen  had  come  out  on 
the  day  of  his  visit,  sixteen  on  the  day  before,  and  in 
the  preceding  week  ninety-two.^  These  political 
tracts,  he  discovered  also,  found  their  way  throughout 
all  the  country.  And  nineteen-twentieths  of  all  these 
publications  he  declares  were  in  favor  of  liberty,  and 
were  commonly  violent  against  the  clergy  and  the 
nobility.  If  journals  were  suppressed,  they  appeared 
under  a  new  name.  Never  was  there  a  greater  evi- 
dence of  the  power  of  inflammatory  journalism.  Paris 
was  not  only  full  of  patriotic  enthusiasm  and  the 
champion  of  the  Assembly;  it  was  fairly  alive  with 
reformers,  agitators,  demagogues,  and  fanatics,  and 
in  consequence  increasingly  was  the  prey  of  that 
insane  suspicion  which  seizes  a  community  that  is 
superficially  full  of  wit,  but  fundamentally  is  im- 
moral. 

It  was  to  such  a  city  that  there  came  rumors 
that  the  king  and  the  court  were  attempting  to 
use  the  army  to  crush  completely  the  new  Assembly, 
now  barely  a  fortnight  old.  Just  what  these  rumors 
were  we  cannot  now  decide,  but  we  know  enough 
to  be  sure  that  in  general  they  must  have  been  cor- 
rect. For  barely  had  Louis  accepted  the  Assembly 
than,  coming  again  under  the  influence  of  the  queen 
and  the  court,  he  determined  to  destroy  it.  Abso- 
lutism, the  court,  privileges,  all  things  were  as  before 
the  meeting  of  the  States  General,  and  Marie  Antoi- 

'One  publisher  issued  i,5cx3  pamphlets  and  books  in  two  years. 


128  The  French  Revolution 

nette  and  her  friends  would  have  been  farsighted 
indeed  if  they  had  seen  the  real  significance  of  the 
mimic  war  between  the  orders  at  Versailles.  France 
had  seen  many  disorders,  and  the  monarchy  had 
always  been  able  to  crush  opposition.  It  is  easy  to 
see  why  a  new  coup  d'itat  should  be  planned. 

The  plan  was  simple.  Marshal  de  Broglie  was 
ordered  secretly  to  gather  troops  and  surround  Paris 
and  Versailles.  Necker  was  to  be  dismissed,  the  troops 
were  to  move  in  upon  the  National  Assembly,  and  then 
all  things  were  to  be  as  they  had  been  before  the  meet- 
ing of  the  States  General.  By  the  ist  of  July  the  plan 
was  ready  for  execution.  Strange  uniforms  began  to 
appear  in  the  streets  of  Versailles,  and  the  troops  for- 
merly  stationed  far  away,  on  the  frontiers  or  in  othei 
cities,  rapidly  gathered  about  Paris.  July  nth  the 
royal  mine  was  sprung.  On  that  day,  as  Necker  was 
sitting  at  dinner  with  friends,  a  sealed  letter  was 
brought  him;  he  broke  the  seal,  and  without  a  change 
of  countenance  read  the  letter's  contents,  folded  it, 
put  it  in  his  pocket,  and  continued  his  conversation. 
It  was  a  command  to  leave  France  immediately. 
Without  a  word  to  his  servants,  without  even  telKng 
his  daughter  his  plans,  he  started  off  the  same  after- 
noon in  his  coach  for  the  frontier.  On  the  next 
day  the  news  was  brought  to  Paris.  Camille  Desmou- 
lins,  one  of  the  most  brilliant  of  the  Parisian  journal- 
ists, plunged  into  the  motley  crowd  at  the  Palais 
Royal,  leaped  upon  one  of  the  tables,  and  shouted 
that  Necker  had  been  dismissed,  that  his  c||pparture 
was  the  St.  Bartholomew's  bell  of  patriots,  that  on 
that  very  evening  the  Swiss  and  the  German  battal- 


The  Uprising  of  the  Masses  129 

ions  were  to  march  from  the  Champs  de  Mars  to 
slaughter  all  patriots.  "There  is  not  a  moment  to 
lose,"  he  cried;  "we  have  but  one  resource — to  rush 
to  arms,  to  wear  cockades  whereby  we  may  know  each 
other.  What  colors  shall  we  wear?  Will  you  wear 
green,  color  of  hope,  or  the  blue  of  Cincinnatus,  the 
color  of  the  liberty  of  America,  and  of  a  democracy?" 
"Green!  green!"  the  crowd  shouted.  Camille  bound 
a  green  ribbon  on  his  hat,  the  crowd  pulled  green 
leaves  from  the  trees,  and  rushed  out  to  gather  arms. 

As  we  look  back  upon  it,  we  can  see  the  alarm 
was  well  grounded.  A  day  more  and  the  Assembly 
would  have  been  in  prison  or  in  exile,  Paris  in  the 
hands  of  the  troops,  France  again  in  the  hands  of  an 
irresponsible  master. 

It  was  a  wild  night  in  Paris,  that  night  of  the  12th 
of  July,  1789.  The  city  officials  were  powerless  to 
keep  order.  The  French  Guards,  the  natural  police, 
fraternized  with  the  people.  Mobs  of  the  lowest 
characters  went  howling  up  and  down  the  streets,  loot- 
ing the  gunsmith  shops,  the  bakeries,  and  the  taverns; 
the  city  was  practically  without  government,  in  the 
hands  of  a  populace  half-demented  with  one  of  those 
panics  to  which  it  was  subject.  The  troops  were  at 
the  doors,  the  city  was  to  be  starved  into  submis- 
sion, and  the  people  of  Paris  were  without  arms ! 

By  degrees  a  semblance  of  order  returned.  The 
shopkeepers  of  their  own  accord  armed  themselves 
and  began  to  patrol  the  streets.  The  electors  of  the 
city,  who  had  but  just  met  to  elect  the  deputies  to 
the  States  General,  extemporized  a  provisional  gov- 
ernment, and  began  to  organize  a  volunteer  force,  the 


130  The  French  Revolution 

National  Guards,  for  the  defense  of  the  city  and  the 
maintenance  of  order.  July  13th  was  passed  in  com- 
parative quiet,  but  the  revolutionary  leaders,  and 
especially  the  agents  of  the  Duke  of  Orleans,  were 
preparing  for  a  great  demonstration.  On  the  morn- 
ing of  July  14th  the  tocsin  called  the  National  Guard 
and  the  mob  alike  to  the  streets.  The  gates  of  the 
city  were  closed,  and  the  mob,  which  now  included 
men  of  all  classes,  took  up  its  mad  search  for  arms. 
But  arms  were  hard  to  get.  Flesselles,  the  provost  of 
the  merchants,  restrained  the  crowd  momentarily  by 
deception,  but  the  news  soon  came  that  there  were 
arms  in  the  Hotel  des  Invalides.  A  few  of  the  mob  at 
the  same  time  began  to  shout  that  there  were  others 
in  the  Bastille.  The  crowd  divided,  some  surging 
thither,  others  starting  off  toward  The  Invalides. 
There  the  governor  attempted  to  deceive  them.  In 
vain.  They  broke  into  the  great  building,  ransacked 
it,  took  every  musket  and  sword  they  could  find  in 
the  boxes  in  the  cellar,  in  the  stands  in  the  guard- 
houses, or  in  the  museum  itself.  At  last  they  were 
partly  ready  to  meet  the  soldiers  of  De  Broglie.  The 
news  came  that  though  there  were  arms  in  the  Bastille, 
they  had  been  refused  the  defenders  of  the  city.  And 
so  away  went  the  crowd  to  the  eastern  part  of  the 
city,  and  gathered  about  the  grim  old  castle-prison. 
•  Originally  the  Bastille  had  been  built  just  outside 
the  city  as  a  sort  of  castle,  after  the  fashion  of  the  \ 
Tower  of  London,  to  control  the  always  uneasy 
populace.  But  as  time  passed,  the  city  had  grown 
about  it,  and  it  had  ceased  to  be  a  fortress  and  had 
become  the  state  prison.     Within  its  dungeons  had  I 


The  Uprising  of  the  Masses  131 

been  confined  nearly  every  famous  man  France 
had  produced,  from  Voltaire,  for  daring  to  challenge 
a  noble,  to  Gabriel  Riquetti  Mirabeau,  for  not  mind- 
ing his  irascible  old  father.  Strange  stories  were 
told  of  dungeons  far  below  the  surface  of  the  ground, 
into  whose  foul  air  no  ray  of  light  ever  came,  where 
men  lived  through  generations  not  knowing  whether 
wife  and  children  still  lived;  of  nameless  tortures;  of 
mysterious  bones,  by  accident  discovered  by  workmen. 
It  is  true  we  know  to-day  that  few  abuses  attended  the 
use  of  the  Bastille  during  the  reign  of  Louis  XVI.,  and 
that  its  prisoners  had  been  granted  no  small  liberty, 
but  the  populace  of  Paris  believed  otherwise,  and  the 
great  building  had  become  the  very  symbol  of  oppres- 
sion. 

But  hated  though  it  was,  and  full  of  arms  though 
it  might  have  been,  not  a  man  of  the  crowd  that  rap- 
idly gathered  about  its  gates  believed  the  Bastille  could 
be  captured.  How  was  an  unorganized  mob,  armed 
only  with  muskets  and  swords  and  pikes,  to  get  over 
two  drawbridges,  and  scale  walls  ten  feet  thick  and 
ninety-six  feet  in  height?  Yet  as  the  crowd  filled  the 
streets  in  the  east  end  of  Paris,  swollen  by  additions 
from  the  lowest  class  of  men  as  well  as  the  artisans; 
as  the  governor,  De  Launay,  refused  to  deliver  up 
arms,  the  thought  of  capturing  the  huge  building  began 
to  suggest  itself.  But  how?  One  worthy  locksmith 
declared,  in  the  good  old  Roman  fashion  by  the  cata- 
pult. Monsieur  Caussidiere,  major-general  c(f  the 
Parisian  militia,  declared  that  it  must  be  takeri  by 
siege.  Santerre,  a  rich  brewer,  leader  of  th6<^wild 
men   from   St.  Antoine,   planned   to   pump  turpentine 


132  The  French  Revolution 

and  phosphorus  from  the  fire-engines  and  set  it  on 
fire.^ 

Despairing  of  taking  the  place  by  storm,  the  crowd 
turned  to  deputations.  A  committee  from  the  elec- 
tors spent  three  hours  in  the  fortress,  but  accomplished 
little.  About  ten  o'clock  in  the  morning,  a  single 
man,  Thuriot  de  Larosiere,  was  admitted  into  the 
Bastille  to  speak  with  the  governor.  Unable  to 
speak  a  word  of  German,  he  yet  harangued  the  few 
Swiss  soldiers  who  formed  the  garrison  till  they  posi- 
tively trembled.  He  told  De  Launay,  in  the  name  of 
a  nation,  to  remove  his  cannon.  De  Launay  promised 
that  the  cannon  should  not  be  used  upon  the  people. 
Thuriot,  coming  out,  begged  the  people  to  wait.  But 
even  as  he  was  speaking  the  tragedy  began.  To 
enable  Thuriot  to  pass,  the  drawbridge  had  been  let 
down  over  the  moat  that  separated  the  people  from 
the  outer  court  of  the  castle.  The  unarmed  crowd,  in 
search  for  weapons,  rushed  over  it  and  stopd  ip  the 
so-called  governor's  court,  just  under  the  walls  of  the 
fortress.  For  some  unknown  reason  the  drawbridge 
was  raised  behind  them.  And  then  De  Launay's  men 
fired.     Why,  we  shall  never  know. 

Were  it  not  for  the  white  stones  in  the  Place  de  la 
Bastille,  outlining  the  building's  great  towers,  were  it 
not  for  the  great  bridges  that  span  the  Seine,  whose 
stones  once  made  the  walls  of  that  ancient  prison, 
one  could  hardly  believe  that  a  people  without 
cannon  should  have  been  able  to  capture  a  fortress, 
and   that   within   a  day.     Yet  capture  is    hardly    the 

*The  pumps  were  actually  brought,  but  unfortunately  there  was  neither 
enough  turpentine  nor  power  in  the  pumps  to  carry  half  way  up  the  sides 
of  the  builoing. 


The  Uprising  of  the  Masses  133 

correct  word.  The  Bastille  was  not  taken ;  it  surren- 
dered. A  wild  firing,  it  is  true,  was  kept  up  upon  the 
building  from  roofs  and  street  and  square,  but  the 
defenders  behind  the  thick  walls  suffered  little.  The 
situation  of  De  Launay  was  by  no  means  desperate. 
It  is  true  some  of  the  troops  who  should  have  dis- 
persed the  crowd  were  among  his  besiegers.  But  he 
had  promises  of  help  from  Versailles,  and  he  had  but  to 
wait  a  few  hours.  But  his  troops  grew  mutinous,  and 
demanded  that  the  impregnable  building  should 
surrender.  De  Launay  was  in  despair.  Rather  than 
surrender,  he  determined  to  blow  up  the  fortress,  but 
was  prevented,  and  then,  in  new  despair,  he  yielded 
to  the  demands  of  his  troops.  The  drawbridge  of  the 
castle  was  let  down,  the  crowd  rushed  in,  and  the 
Bastille  had  fallen! 

It  is  a  pity  that  the  story  cannot  end  here,  and  yet 
as  we  look  back  upon  it  we  see  that  it  is  hardly  pos- 
sible. A  mob  that  had  seen  eight  hundred  and 
thirty-seven  of  its  members  apparently  trapped  and 
then  shot  down  in  cold  blood;  that  had  for  hours 
been  gathering  to  itself  the  scum  of  the  slums;  that 
had  for  hundreds  of  years  been  tauglit  license  in 
brutality  and  violence  by  the  very  building  it  had 
captured,  could  not  let  this  victory  pass  without 
bloodshed.  Hardly  had  the  Swiss  been  taken  from 
the  walls  than  the  promise  of  preserving  their  lives 
was  broken,  and  an  indiscriminate  slaughter  began. 
The  bodies  were  horribly  mutilated ;  the  heads  were 
placed  upon  pikes,  and  were  carried  in  triumph  by  the 
howling  crowd  to  the  city  hall.  De  Launay  himself, 
in    the    midst    of  what   protectors    he    could    gather, 


134  "^^^  French  Revolution 

started  toward  the  same  place,  but  before  he  had 
reached  a  refuge  the  mob  surged  in  upon  him,  beat 
him  to  the  ground,  and  in  a  moment  his  head  also 
was  on  a  pike.  The  other  deaths  that  followed  need 
not  be  spoken  of.  The  murders  of  Flesselles,  Foulon, 
and  Berthier  were  but  the  work  of  a  half-crazed  mob 
meting  out  "the  justice  of  the  people."  The  best 
men — and  there  were  best  men  in  the  crowd  that  took 
the  Bastille — had  nothing  to  do  with  such  actions. 
The  murder  of  these  men  made  it  plain  that  in  Paris 
on  the  14th  of  July,  1789,  the  passion  of  the  Parisian 
mob,  be  it  never  so  bedecked  with  fine  phrases,  was 
brutal  and  anarchic,  pregnant  with  every  evil. 

The  fall  of  the  Bastille  was  something  more  than 
the  fall  of  a  disused  but  hated  prison.  If  one  will  go 
to  the  Museum  Carnavallet  in  Paris  he  will  see  a  host 
of  mementos  which  testify  to  something  more  than 
a  passing  delirium.  There  are  locks  from  the  Bastille, 
doors  from  the  Bastille,  models  of  the  Bastille  made 
from  its  own  masonry;  Bastille  fans,  handkerchiefs, 
porcelains,  pictures.  And  if  one  will  read  the 
memoirs  of  the  time,  he  will  find  all  Europe  cele- 
brating the  event  —  Englishmen  orating,  Russians 
hugging  one  another,  Germans  weeping  for  joy.  The 
explanation  of  all  this  enthusiasm  lies  in  this:  the  fall 
of  the  Bastille  was  the  symbol  of  the  fall  of  Bourbon 
absolutism,  the  sign  of  the  rise  of  a  nation.  For  this 
reason  is  it  that  the  14th  of  July  has  been  added  to 
the  list  of  national  birthdays. 

More  immediately,  also,  the  fall  of  the  Bastille, had 
important  results.  The  coup  d'etat  of  the  court  party 
was     ruined.       Necker     was    recalled.      The    Count 


The  Uprising  of  the  Masses  135 

d'Artois  and  the  Polignac  women  fled  from  France. 
Large  numbers  of  the  court  clique  followed  their 
example,  and  thus  there  came  about  the  "First  Emi- 
gration," The  Due  de  Liancourt  was  the  first  to 
break  the  news  to  Louis.  ''Why,"  said  the  king,' 
"this  is  a  revolt!"  "No,  your  Majesty,"  replied  the 
duke,  "it  is  revolution."  The  king  was  startled  into 
action.  He  recognized  the  assembly  of  the  electors 
as  the  government  of  Paris,  and  the  astronomer  Bailly 
as  mayor;  he  legalized  the  National  Guard  and  placed 
La  Fayette  in  command.  He  himself — for  Louis  had 
courage —  partook  of  the  sacrament  and  went  to  Paris. 
There  he  was  received  with  honor  by  the  new  govern- 
ment of  the  city,'  and,  as  a  token  of  his  good  inten- 
tions, put  on  a  red,  white,  and  blue  cockade.^ 

Other  results  were  less  happy.  The  discontent  and 
violence  that  had  appeared  sporadically  and  locally 
throughout  France,  suddenly  grew  persistent  and 
universal.  The  people  rose  through  the  country. 
Every  place  to  which  the  news  of  the  14th  of  July 
came  emulated  the  capital  by  attacking  its  local  Bas- 
tille, the  house  of  the  feudal  lord.  Whether  or  not  the 
riots  were  instigated  by  the  Duke  of  Orleans,  who 
was  anxious  to  force  Louis  to  abdicate,  that  he  might 
be  regent,  will  never  be  known  certainly,  although 
Orleans  was  undoubtedly  capable  of  such  a  policy. 
But  with  whatever  aid,  the  abused  peasants  turned 
upon  their  hereditary  oppressors.  The  flogging  of 
salt-agents,  the    extortion    of    the    tax-gatherers,  the 

*It  was  while  receiving  Louis  at  the  city  gate  that  Bailly.  who  had  been 
elected  the  first  mayor  of  Paris,  uttered  the  famous  words,  "Henry  IV.  recon- 
quered  his  capital;  now  the  capital  has  reconquered  its  king." 

^The  red  and  blue  were  the  colors  of  Paris,  and  white  was  the  color  of 
the  Bourbons. 


136  The  French  Revolution 

miseries  of  the  frog-marshes,  all  the  horrors  of  feudal 
tyranny,  were  paid  back  stroke  upon  stroke.  Yet  it 
must  be  added  that  these  upt-isings  were  less  violent 
where  the  peasantry  was  the  more  prosperous,  and 
were  sometimes  directed  against  the  custom-houses, 
and  in  general  were  less  against  the  feudal  lord  than 
against  feudal  privilege.  Often  if  a  seigneur  delivered 
up  the  books  containing  the  records  of  the  feudal  dues, 
violence  was  avoided.  But  anarchy  none  the  less 
reigned,  and  the  ignorant  masses  went  demented. 
July  and  August  were  months  of  the  *'great  fear." 
Plots  were  suspected  on  all  sides — brigands  were 
always  on  the  point  of  breaking  in  upon  one's  town  or 
village;  huge  royalist  syndicates  were  being  formed 
to  starve  the  people  into  submission  by  raising  the 
price  of  grain;  the  Duke  of  Orleans  was  hiring  ras- 
cals to  terrify  the  people  into  loving  him;  royalists 
were  blowing  up  patriotic  citizens  at  lawn  parties.' 

If  it  be  asked  why  the  king  and  his  ministers  did 
not  use  military  force  and  crush  out  this  anarchy,  it 
must  be  replied  that  there  was  no  army  to  be  trusted 
by  the  king.  Throughout  France  the  garrisons 
refused  to  obey  royalist  officers,  and  even  De  Broglie 
fled  to  Germany.  And  if  it  be  asked  why  the 
Assembly  did  not  check  these  disorders,  the  only  reply 
can  be  that  the  Assembly  neither  had  the  ability  nor 
the  desire  to  use  force.  It  was  concerned  with  reduc- 
ing the  Rights  of  Man  to  formulas. 

Thus  in  July,  1789,  the  two  wings  of  the  revolu- 
tion united,  the  masses  to  reform  by  destruction,  the 

'In  one  case  it  was  charg^ed  that  this  was  actually  done  by  one  Mesmai 
at  Vesoul.  but  the  investigating  committee  of  the  Assembly  reported  with- 
out even  raising  such  a  suspicion. 


i 


The  Uprising  of  the  Masses  137 

National  Assembly  by  political  philosophy.  In  the 
meantime  Louis  hunted,  the  court  emigrated,  the 
ministers  did  nothing,  Necker  passed  sleepless  nights 
in  writing  financial  statements,  and  the  Assembly,  to 
use  Mirabeau's  words,  *'spent  months  over  syllables." 


CHAPTER    XI 

THE   END    OF   THE    OLD    REGIME' 

I.  The  Fourth  of  August,  1789.  II.  New  Problems.  III.  The 
Removal  of  the  King  to  Paris:  i.  Marat  and  the  New 
Popular  Leaders;  2.  The  Fifth  and  Sixth  of  October,  1789. 

The  fall  of  the  Bastille  and  the  attendant  disorders 
throughout  France  were  by  no  means  the  only  impor- 
tant facts  of  the  early  months  of  the  Revolution. 
Others  are  to  be  found  quite  as  truly  in  the  doings  of 
the  Assembly,  which  since  the  defeat  of  the  court 
party  was  left  to  effect,  without  fear  of  violence,  those 
reforms  upon  which  France  was  determined.  Nor 
should  it  for  a  moment  be  supposed  that  the  Assembly 
was  indifferent  to  public  disorder.  ^Yet  its  interests 
were  more  theoretical  than  administrative,  and  it  con- 
tented itself  with  appointing  a  committee  to  report 
upon  the  condition  of  the  nation., 

While  this  committee  was  making  its  investiga- 
tions, the  Assembly  devoted  itself  to  drawing  up  the 
constitution  it  had  sworn  in  the  tennis-court  to  pro- 
duce. It  was  a  slow  process,  made  all  the  more 
difficult  by  the  lack  of  parliamentary  procedure  and 
the  habit  of  delivering  set  speeches  of  indefinite 
length.     First  of  all,  came  the  question  as  to  whether 

'In  greneral  see  Stephens,  French  Revolution,  I,  ch.  7;  McCarthy,  French 
Revolution,  II,  chs.  13-20;  Taine,  French  Revolution,  I,  bk.  i,  ch.  4;  Thiers, 
French  Revolution,  I,  80-114;  Von  Hoist,  French  Revolution,  II,  ch.  7. 

138 


The  End  of  the  Old  Regime  139 

or  not  there  should  be  a  declaration  of  rights  pre- 
fixed to  the  constitution.  Deciding  in  the  affirm- 
ative, the  Assembly  debated  for  weeks  the  matter 
of  the  rights  of  man  and  the  citizen,  meanwhile 
allowing  the  country  to  govern  itself.  (Its  passion 
for  philosophical  generalities  quite  unfitted  the  Assem- 
bly for  legislation,  rits  members  were  masters  of 
sentimental  politics,  but  quite  incapable  of  instituting 
reforms  in  such  a  way  as  to  guarantee  public  peace. 
When  abuses  were  destroyed,  the  very  reform  threw 
the  country  into  deeper  disorder.  On  the  4th  of 
August  the  committee  on  the  state  of  the  nation 
reported,  and  a  sad  enough  report  did  it  make. 
Chateaux  were  burning  all  over  France,  millers  had 
been  hanged,  tax-gatherers  drowned,  warehouses  and 
depots  of  the  salt  trade  burnt.  It  was  evening  when 
the  report  was  finished,  and  the  Assembly  listened  at 
first  in  a  sort  of  stupor  to  the  terrible  facts.  Then 
enthusiasm  amounting  almost  to  hysteria  seized  its 
members.  The  liberal  party  had  found  its  oppor- 
tunity. Vicomte  de  Noailles  rushed  to  the  tribune. 
"What  is  the  cause  of  the  evil  which  is  thus  agitating 
the  provinces?"  he  cried.  It  was,  he  showed,  the  fact 
that  the  people  were  uncertain  whether  or  not  the 
old  feudal  demands  were  still  in  force,  and  were  deter- 
mined to  see  that  they  were  utterly  destroyed.  As 
one  of  the  privileged  orders,  he  proposed  to  abolish 
all  feudal  rights.  His  motion  was  seconded  by 
D'Aiguillon,  next  to  the  king  the  greatest  feudal  lord 
in  France,  and  passed  in  a  frenzy  of  self-sacrifice. 
Noble  after  noble  arose  and  proposed  the  abolition  of 
their  privileges.     Rights  of  chase,  rights  of  dovecote, 


140  The  French  Revolution 

rights  of  tithes,  special  eligibility  to  office,  all  fol- 
lowed each  other  into  oblivion.  Many  nobles  beg- 
gared themselves  in  their  enthusiasm.  The  clergy 
vied  with  the  nobles.  Decrees  followed  for  the  equal- 
ization of  penalties;  freedom  of  employment;  the 
abolition  of  feudal  justice,  customs  at  the  frontiers  of 
the  provinces,  guilds,  pensions  and  salaries,  special 
privileges  of  towns  and  provinces,  serfdom  and  mort- 
main.' And  to  crown  it  all,  in  an  outgush  of  loyalty, 
Louis,  who  had  been  ignorant  of  the  whole  affair, 
was  voted  the  Restorer  of  French  Liberty! 

To  understand  the  significance  of  the  night  of  the 
4th  of  August  it  is  necessary  to  remember  that  the 
Revolution  is  marked  by  a  series  of  stages.  <iThe  first 
period  was  not  so  much  political  as  economic  and 
social.'  The  only  attack  was  upon  the  relics  of  feudal- 
ism, not  upon  the  state.  The  National  Assembly 
aimed  not  at  destroying  the  monarchy,  but  the 
unjust- privileges  under  which  France  had  so  long 
suffered.  «And  this  first  period  culminated  on  the 
4th  of  August.  It  is  true  hysterical  legislation  is 
always  inexpedient.  Sober  thought,  elementary  par- 
liamentary rules,  would  have  prevented  some  of 
the  decrees  of  that  night.  But  even  when  all  allow- 
ance is  made,  this  much  stands  true:  that  hostility 
to  privilege  for  which  Turgot  and  Necker  had 
stood  unavailingly  was  converted  into  laws  within 
a  few  hours.  1  From  that  day  to  this  France  has  never 
known  a  revival  of  the  accursed  condition  that  existed 
under  the   Old  Regime.     It  makes    little    difference 

^Compensation,  however,  was  granted  for  certain  of  these  privileges. 


The  End  of  the  Old  Regime  141 

whether  we  say  that  the  4th  of  August  destroyed 
privileges  or  simply  declared  them  destroyed ;  in  either 
case  it  outlawed  them.  And  with  them  the  Old 
Regime  as  a  whole  was  outlawed.  It  is  a  pity  we  can- 
not say  that  it  was  dead  and  buried,  but  actually  it 
was  simply  outlawed,  and,  like  all  outlaws,  its  hand 
was  against  the  law  that  drove  it  forth,  and  its  hopes 
lay  in  the  undoing  of  the  good  work  the  Revolution 
had  thus  far  accomplished. 

During  the  few  months  following  the  fall  of  the  Bas- 
tille, the  local  institutions  of  the  Old  Regime  rapidly 
disappeared  throughout  the  provinces.  It  was  not 
merely  that  the  peasants  turned  liberty  into  license.^ 
In  despair  of  protection  from  the  regular  army,  the 
bourgeoisie  organized  spontaneously  in  companies  of 
»National  Guards,  into  which  went  most  of  the  militia. 
Gradually  these  National  Guards  throughout  the 
country  grew  affiliated.  Thanks  to  this  new  military 
force,  order  was  partly  restored,  but  this  very  success 
deepened  the  hatred  of  the  insurgent  peasantry;  and 
in  Dauphine  the  struggle  between  the  National  Guards 
and  the  peasants  amounted  to  civil  war.  In  the  towns, 
also,  there  was  disorder;  but  a  vigorous  council,  like 
that  of  Rouen,  had  no  difficulty  in  suppressing  riots 
and  punishing  their  leaders.  When  the  old  local 
governments  proved  inefficient,  new  permanent  mu- 
nicipal  committees,  composed  largely  of  members  of 
the  bourgeoisie^  sprang  up,  and  as  in  the  case  of  the 
National  Guards,  these  improvised  governments  were 
soon  in  correspondence  with  each  other.     These  new 

'Arthur  Young  says  a  man's  life  was  in  danger  from  the  number  of  peas- 
ants out  gunningl 


142  The  French  Revolution 

,  organizations  were  wholly  independent  of  the  Assem- 
bly, and  illustrated  not  only  the  readiness  with  which 
the  middle  classes  broke  from  the  Old  Regime,  but 
also  show  how  thoroughly  nationalized  the  revolu- 
tionary  spirit  had  become. 

The  problem  of  the  workingman  in  the  cities, 
however,  had  not  been  solved  by  the  decrees  of  the 
4th  oT  August,  nor  had  that  of  universal  poverty.  In 
fact,  the  Assembly  was  little  concerned  with  such 
matters,  questions  of  vested  privilege  and  natural 
rights  not  being  involved.  Yet  in  the  ignorant,  hun- 
gry, half-frenzied  proletariat  of  each  city  the  bour- 
geoisie^ which  had  destroyed  the  feudal  and  monarchi- 
cal institutions,  was  to  find  its  most  inveterate  enemy. 
As  a  matter  of  practical  politics,  the  masses,  intoxi- 
cated with  the  crudest  ideas  of  liberty,  should  not 
have  been  neglected  by  the  reformers;  and  this  over- 
sight on  the  part  of  the  well-to-do  deputies  furnished 
the  opportunity  for  radically  democratic  leaders,  like 
Marat  and  Danton.  The  middle-class  legislation  of 
the  National  Assembly  was  to  be  followed  by  the 
ultra-democratic  class  legislation  of  the  Jacobin 
period. 

Thus  the  important  elements  in  the  revolutionary 
'movement  became  distinct:  the  court,  the  Assembly, 
the  bourgeoisie^  the  peasants,  the  masses  of  the  cities, 
and  especially  the  populace  of  Paris,  ^^or  the 
moment,  however,  these  were  represented  by  two 
bodies,  the  Assembly  and  the  court,  each  wishing  to 
control  the  king.  Had  France  in  July,  August,  and 
September,  1789,  been  possessed  of  a  strong  govern- 
ment, quiet  might  have  been  restored,  and  the  dark 


The  End  of  the  Old  Regime  143 

days  which  were  to  follow  might  have  been  avoided. 
No  mistakes  had  thus  far  been  committed  that  a 
strong  administration  might  not  easily  have  corrected. 
The  Revolution  in  August,  1789,  deserved  the  enthusi- 
asm it  universally  aroused;  its  only  dangers  lay  in 
the  undoing  of  its  work.  And  this  could  be  brought 
about  only  by  its  own  indiscretions  or  by  the  success 
of  the  court. 

As  we  look  a  little  closer  at  France,  it  is  evi- 
dent that  while  it  was  likely  that  in  its  enthusiasm  for 
humanity  the  Assembly  might  neglect  administration, 
the  danger  from  the  court  party  was  imminent.*  It 
would  not  have  been  human  nature  for  persons  who 
once  had  been  possessed  of  all  privileges  to  relinquish 
them  immediately,  because  some  of  their  fellows  had 
been  overtaken  by  a  passionate  generosity.  And  so  it 
came  about  that  from  the  4th  of  August  until  the 
court  party  finally  disappeared  in  the  overthrow  of 
the  monarchy  three  years  later,  the  history  of  the 
Revolution  became  a  struggle  between  the  parties  o^ 
revolution  and  counter-revolution.  Louis  himself 
grew  increasingly  useless;  but  had  the  court — or  let 
us  say  more  accurately,  had  the  queen — been  able  to 
see  things  exactly  as  they  were,  had  she  been  ready 
to  make  use  of  La  Fayette  and  Mirabeau,  the  two  men 
who  could  and  would  have  helped  her,  much  conflict, 
much  misery,  might  have  been  spared.  But  instead, 
the  queen  :^rew  the  more  bitter  in  her  opposition  to 
the  liberal  movement,  and  events  went  on  at  Ver- 
sailles much  as  before  the  flight  of  the  king's  friends; 
forgetting  the  effects  of  their  first  attempt,  the  court 
party  began  to  plot  a  new  coup  d'etat. 


/ 

144  T^^  French  Revolution 

Their  projects  were  not  well  hidden,  and  the  popu- 
lar leaders  of  Paris  determined  once  and  for  all  to 
bring  the  king  away  from  the  influence  of  the  court, 
and  establish  him  in  his  palace  in  Paris,  where  he 
would  be  a  hostage  against  royalist  attacks.  Further, 
it  was  thought  that  if  the  Assembly  were  only  in  Paris 
it  might  be  induced  to  come  down  from  the  thin  air 
of  deductive  politics  and  consider  the  vulgar  but 
more  essential  matter  of  the  price  of  bread.  Such 
a  plan  evidently  involved  many  difficulties,  for  not 
only  must  the  king  be  persuaded  that  such  a 
transfer  was  necessary,  but  some  energetic  action 
must  be  taken  to  counteract  the  programme  of  the 
court  party.  And  here,  for  the  first  time,  we  meet 
that  use  of  the  Parisian  mob  which  later  became  so 
characteristic  of  the  extreme  revolutionists. 

Since  the  fall  of  the  Bastille,  France,  and  especially 
Paris,  had  given  birth  to  revolutionists  far  more  ready 
than  the  deputies  to  champion  the  masses,  and  also 
to  a  rank  sort  of  agitators,  most  of  whom  owned  or 
edited  journals.  Chief  among  these  latter  was  a 
Doctor  Marat,  a  master  of  six  languages,  who  had 
barely  missed  being  elected  a  member  of  the  Royal 
Academy  of  France,  had  been  the  court  physician 
of  the  Count  d'Artois,  had  achieved  considerable 
reputation  as  an  authority  on  light,  electricity,  and 
diseases  of  the  eye,  and  the  list  of  whose  scientific  pub- 
lications fills  three  octavo  pages.*  Marat's  interest  in 
the  masses  was  worthy  of  all  his  apologists  say  for 
him ;  but  if  he  were  a  Wilberforce  in  theory,  he  was  a 

*  Marat  had  one  volume  crowned  by  the  Academy  of  Rouen,  and  another 
"approved"  by  the  Royal  Academy. 


The  End  of  the  Old  Regime  145 

Nero  in  method.  Before  his  assassination  by  Char- 
lotte Corday  in  1793,  his  mind  weakened,  his  influence 
waned,  and  his  demands  for  heads  can  hardly  be 
regarded  as  anything  more  than  half-maniacal  ravings. 
In  1789,  however,  he  was  of  rapidly  increasing  impor- 
tance, notwithstanding  he  was  on  bad  terms  with 
La  Fayette.  He  was  possessed  of  a  profound  pity  for 
the  populace,  a  vast  talent  for  suspicion  and  denunci- 
ation, a  passionate  hatred  of  the  aristocracy;  and  all 
of  these  traits  he  reduced  to  type  in  one  of  the  most 
eccentrically  bloodthirsty  sheets  the  world  ever  saw, 
L'Ami  du  Peuple} 

Marat^  was  soon  to  find  his  opportunity.  On  the 
ist  of  October  a  portion  of  the  new  troops  which 
had  been  summoned  by  the  court  arrived,  and  the 
officers  of  the  body-guard  at  Versailles  gave  a  supper 
in  honor  of  the  regiment  from  Flanders.  The  news  of 
the  arrival  of  this  regiment,  of  course,  was  known  in 
Paris,  and  served  to  arouse  the  worst  apprehen- 
sions of  the  Parisians,  and  these  apprehensions  were 
turned  into  frenzy  by  the  reports  which  came  of  the 
banquet.  The  agitators  seized  upon  this  orgy,  as 
they  called  it:  Paris  was  starving  while  the  court  was 
feasting;    the    red-white-and-blue    cockades    of    the 

*It  is  perhaps  worth  noticing:  that  though  he  believed  De  Launay,  Fou- 
lon,  and  Berthier  worthy  of  death,  he  denounced  their  lynching  as  a  viola- 
tion of  justice  and  an  outrage  of  nature.  It  might  be  added  that  several  of 
the  worst  numbers  of  his  iournal  were  forgeries  issued  by  his  enemies. 
During  the  last  twelve  months  of  Marat's  life  sixty-four  persons  had  been 
guillotined.  Not  one  of  them  had  been  denounced  or  mentioned  by  him. 
See  Bougeart,  Marat,  II,28j  seq. 

''On  Marat  see  Stephens  in  the  Encyclopcedia  Britannica  and  French 
Revolution,  I,  216-219.  The  traditional  view  of  his  character  is  that  of 
Michelet,  French  Revolution  (Bohn  ed.),  535-551.  His  great  apologist  is 
Bougeart,  Marat,  V Ami  du  Peuple^nd  his  most  laborious  and  appreciative 
biographer  is  Chevremont,  Marat,  Esprit  politique.  See  also  Bowen  Graves 
in  Fortnightly,  1874,  2,  and  tor  socialist  judgment,  Bax,  Marat ;  also  in 
Gentleman'' s  Magazine,  New  Series,  XIX,  572. 


146  The  French  Revolution 

people  had  been  trampled  under  foot;  the  royalist 
song,  *'Richard,  My  King,"  had  been  sung  by  officers 
as  they  pledged  health  to  the  queen.  Marat  now 
comes  into  special  prominence.  On  the  4th  of  Octo- 
ber he  seems  to  have  gone  to  Versailles,  and  upon 
his  return,  Paris  began  to  seethe.  If  the  men 
had  learned  to  respect  the  prowess  of  the  National 
Guard,  the  women  of  the  lowest  classes,  especially 
the  market-women,  had  not.  In  accord  with  the 
plans  of  the  agitators,  whose  tools  they  were, 
the  women,  and  men  dressed  as  women,  collected 
themselves  in  different  parts  of  the  city,  formed 
rude  troops,  impressed  every  woman  they  met,  and 
began  to  march  toward  the  City  Hall.  Companies 
of  the  National  Guard — not  those  composed  of  bour- 
geois^ but  of  men  of  the  old  army,  who  had  been 
overtaken  by  the  prevailing  spirit — were  drawn  up  to 
oppose  them.  "You  will  not  fire  upon  women,"  they 
said,  and  threw  themselves  upon  the  soldiers'  necks. 
As  if  in  an  opera  bouffe,  the  soldiers  capitulated.  A 
quick-witted  man  by  the  name  of  Maillard,  seeing 
that  the  women  were  capable  of  all  mischief  \i  left 
in  Paris — they  were  just  about  to  hang  an  unlucky 
clergyman — placed  himself  with  a  drum  at  the  head  of 
the  procession,  and  led  it  away  from  the  city  towards 
Versailles,  promising  the  women  bread.  It  was  a 
wild  procession,  this  of  the  women,  shouting,  starv- 
ing, mad  with  the  wildest  of  revolutionary  deliriums. 
A  modern  city  would  have  dispersed  it  in  sh6rt 
order,  but  when  La  Fayette  succeeded  in  gathering 
the  National  Guard,  he  found  his  troops  were  bent 
upon  bringing  the  king  to  Paris„      Either  sincerely  or 


The  End  of  the  Old  Regime  147 

for  the  sake  of  appearances,  La  Fayette  endeavored 
to  procrastinate;  the  soldiers  were  polite  but  deter- 
mined, and  at  last  the  general,  probably  not  quite 
unwillingly,  put  himself  at  the  head  of  another  pro- 
cession and  also  marched  to  Versailles. 

It  is  a  good  eight  miles  from  Paris  to  Versailles, 
and  when  the  crowd  of  hungry  women  reached  the 
palace  it  was  ready  for  sleep  or  for  riot.  It  surged 
into  the  astonished  and  not  altogether  pleased  Assem- 
bly,^ demanding  that  the  price  of  bread  be  low- 
ered by  law,  and  then,  after  sending  a  deputation  to 
the  king,  found  its  way  into  the  great  court  of  the 
palace.  For  a  few  hours  the  situation,  if  critical,  was 
not  hopeless.  Some  of  the  crowd  were  drunk,  and 
others  attempted  to  satisfy  hunger  by  roasting  a  horse 
that  had  chanced  to  be  shot.  At  last  La  Fayette 
arrived  with  his  troops,  and  after  disposing  them  in 
churches  for  the  night,  thinking  all  was  quiet,  retired 
to  get  a  few  hours*  rest  after  twenty-four  of  constant 
exertion.  His  fatigue  can  hardly  excuse  his  negli- 
gence, for  as  day  broke,  under  what  provocation  it  is 
not  known,  the  mob  broke  into  the  palace,  and 
made  for  the  queen's  apartment,  apparently  bent 
on  murder.  Two  of  the  Life  Guards  were  thrown 
out  of  the  windows  to  the  greater  mob  below, 
where  in  a  second  their  heads  were  off  and  on  pikes. 
The  queen  was  aroused  just  in  time.      Heroic  guards, 

^The  Assembly  played  a  curious  role  in  the  affair.  The  women  crowded 
the  galleries  and  told  the  deputies  to  "  shut  up,'*  and  shouted  for  "  Mother 
Mirabeau."  The  president  of  the  Assembly,  Mounier,  headed  the  deputa- 
tion to  the  king,  and  in  his  absence  one  of  the  women  sat  in  his  chair.  In 
the  mean  time  some  of  the  royalist  deputies  were  flirting  with  the  best- 
looking  of  the  crowd.  The  desperate  attempt  of  the  Assembly  to  maintain 
its  dignity  can  hardly  be  appreciated  without  reading  the  account  of  its 
proceedings  in  the  Moniteur  or  the  Archives  Parlementaires . 


148  The  French  Revolution 

at  the  risk  of  their  lives,  kept  the  inner  doors  of  the 
palace  closed  until  she  went  by  a  private  staircase  to 
the  apartments  of  the  king.  This  violence,  however, 
was  of  but  short  duration,  for  La  Fayette  was  able  to 
bring  about  a  return  of  order  by  means  of  his  troops, 
and  the  wild  night  came  to  something  like  peaceful 
morning. 

When  morning  came,  the  king  appeared  on  the 
balcony,  and  was  enthusiastically  cheered  when  he 
promised  to  go  to  Paris.  La  Fayette  led  the  queen 
and  the  dauphin  upon  the  balcony,  that  the  crowd 
might  see  her  with  a  cockade  in  her  hand.  "No  chil- 
dren!" howled  the  crowd,  and  the  queen  bravely  stood 
out  alone  with  the  general.  La  Fayette  gave  her  the 
tricolor  cockade,  bent  and  in  the  most  chivalrous 
way  kissed  her  hand.  The  crowd  was  pleased,  and  in 
a  way  subdued,  and  a  few  hours  later  Louis,  with  the 
queen  and  the  children,  started  for  the  capital,  never 
again   to  return   to   the   grand  palace  of  Louis  XIV. 

It  was  a  third  and  wildest  of  all  the  proces- 
sions of  these  two  days^ — women,  men,  body-guards, 
troops.  La  Fayette  on  his  white  horse,  and  the  people 
from  the  slums  surrounding  the  royal  carriage,  howl- 
ing, "We  have  got  the  baker,  and  the  baker's  wife, 
and  the  baker's  little  boy.  Now  we  shall  have 
bread."  And  so  they  came  to  Paris  and  the  shabby 
palace  of  the  Tuileries. 

The  Assembly  at  Versailles,  instead  of  acting  like 
men,  and  punishing  the  authors  of  this  shameful  affair, 
yielded    to    mob    law,  voted    that    the    king  and    the 

'It  is  commonly  said  that  the  heads  of  the  two  murdered  guards  were 
borne  on  pikes  in  front  of  the  carriage.  La  Fayette  expressly  denies  this  in 
his  Memoirs. 


The  End  of  the  Old  Regime  149 

Assembly  were  inseparable,  and  in  its  turn  went  to 
Paris.  Quarters  were  prepared  for  it  in  one  of  the 
great  riding-schools  of  the  town,  close  by  the  royal 
palace  of  the  Tuileries,  and  at  last  the  capital  had 
the  king  and  the  National  Assembly  in  its  own  control. 
It  was  the  guarantee  that  the  Old  Regime  should  not 
be  restored. 

La  Fayette  and  the  bourgeois  government  of 
Paris  (Commune)  were  the  immediate  gainers  by  the 
transfer  of  the  Assembly  to  Paris.  The  Duke  of 
Orleans  was  driven  to  England,  the  Commune 
repressed  popular  uprisings,  and  La  Fayette,  for  the 
moment  the  most  powerful  man  in  France,  with  the 
aid  of  the  National  Guard,  brought  something  like 
quiet  into  the  excited  capital. 

But  the  more  sinister  fact  cannot  be  overlooked. 
Whether  willingly  or  not,  the  municipal  government 
of  Paris,  the  commander-in-chief  of  the  National 
Guard,  the  National  Assembly,  the  king,  had  all  been 
for  the  moment  conquered  by  the  proletarian  mob, 
directed  by  demagogues.  The  end  of  such  a  triumph 
Mirabeau  alone  saw,  and  through  La  Marck,  his  friend 
at  court,  he  urged  Louis  to  leave  Paris  and  establish 
himself  and  the  Assembly  in  some  smaller  and  more 
friendly  city.  The  advice  was  timely  but  unheeded, 
and  both  Louis  and  the  Assembly  remained  in  a  city 
not  only  suspicious,  but  naturally  inclined  to  violence 
and  brutality. 


CHAPTER    XII 

%       THE   REORGANIZATION   OF   FRANCE* 

I.  The  Parties  in  the  Assembly:  i.  The  Extreme  Right;  2.  The 
Right;  3.  The  Center;  4.  The  Left;  5.  The  Extreme  Left. 
IL  Mirabeau.  IIL  The  Work  of  the  Assembly:  i.  The 
Weakening  of  the  Executive;  2.  The  Finances;  3.  The 
Church;  4.  The  Military;  5.  The  Judiciary;  6.  The  Legis- 
lature. 

The  events  of  the  5th  and  6th  of  October  were 
followed  by  more  than  two  years  of  at  least  outward 
comparative  quiet.  Yet  no  years  of  the  Revolution 
were  more  critical  and  resultful.  It  was  then  that 
the  constitution  was  produced ;  it  was  then  that,  as  real 

Jgovernment  collapsed,  the  bourgeoisie  lost  its  control  of 
public  opinion,  and  the  entire  nation  came  under  the 
influence  of  radicals  supported  by  the  proletariat;  and 
it  was  then  that  the   forces  were  accumulated  that 

.  made  France  a  republic. 

Before  it  is  possible  to  understand  the  course  of 
debates  and  executive  decrees  that  resulted   in  the 

♦  short-lived  constitution  of  1791,  it  is  necessary  to  con- 
sider the  parties  in  the  Assembly.  Their  origin  can 
be  seen  in  the  numerous  differences  in  principles  and 
interests  that  characterized  the  deputies,  but  their 
first  real  appearance  was  due  to  the  debates  over  the 
purely  constitutional  question  as  to  whether  or  not  the 

*In  general,  see  Stephens,  History  of  the  French  Revolution,  I,  chs.  8,  9, 
10;  Von  Sybel,  French  Revolution,  I,  bk.  i,  cb.  5;  bk.  ii,  ch.  3;  Von  Hoist, 
French  Revolution,  II,  ch.  7. 

ISO 


The  Reorganization  of  France  151 

king  should  have  the  power  of  vetoing  the  acts  of  the 
Assembly.  They  were  named  from  their  position  in 
the  great  Assembly  hall  in  relation  to  the  president. 
The  Extreme  Right,  or  Reactionist  party,  was  com- 
posed of  a  hundred  bishops  and  a  few  nobles.  The 
nobility's  leaders  were  D'Espremesnil  and  the  brother 
of  the  great  Mirabeau,  called,  from  his  capacity  to 
hold  liquor,  "the  Barrel,"  while  the  leader  of  the 
bishops  was  the  Archbishop  of  Aix.  The  party  of 
the  Right  numbered  from  200  to  250,  and  was  com- 
posed of  moderate  men  who  favored  a  constitutional 
monarchy  after  the  style  of  England,  and  was  led  by 
Mounier  and  Malouet  until  they  were  forced  to 
resign  their  charge  to  abler  hands.  In  the  center  of 
the  hall  sat  about  half  the  Assembly,  who  were  prac- 
tically neutral,  and  voted  with  either  Right  or  Left, 
but  were  especially  liable  to  be  influenced  by  popu- 
lar clamor.  The  Left  was  the  most  active  division  of 
the  Assembly.  It  was  composed  of  about  the  same 
number  of  delegates  as  was  the  Right,  and  included 
most  of  the  young  nobles  who  had  served  in  America. 
Its  most  noted  men  were  Sieyes,  Talleyrand,  La  Fay- 
ette, but  by  the  end  of  1789  its  leaders  in  the  Assem- 
bly were  Dupont,  Lameth,  and  Barnave,  the  "trium- 
virate." Its  plan  was  to  cut  loose  from  the  past  and 
at  the  same  time  maintain  the  monarchy.  On  the 
extreme  left  of  the  speaker  sat  a  small  body  of 
radicals,  completely  under  the  influence  of  the  philos- 
ophy of  Rousseau.  Chief  among  them  were  Robes- 
pierre, Petion,  and  Buzot,  all  of  whom  were  later  to 
be  of  first  importance.  They  had,  however,  little 
power  within  the  ^Assembly,  'and  turned  to  the  clubs. 


IJ2 


The  French  Revolution 


Besides  these  five  parties,  there  was  a  single  person 
who,  belonging  to  neither,  was  yet  the  only  man  in 
the  entire  body  who  seemed  capable  of  seeing  things 
as  they  actually  were,  Mirabeau. 

Gabriel  Honor^  Riquetti  Compte  de  Mirabeau' 
was  by  all  means  the  most  important  character  in  the 
first  years  of  the  Revolution,  though  less  for  what 
he  accomplished  than  for  what  he  attempted.  His 
early  years'  had  been  made  miserable  by  his  own  dissi- 
pations and  his  father's  spectacular  discipline. 
Throughout  his  life  he  was  licentious,  extravagant, 
and  destitute  of  anything  like  ordinary  moral  consis- 
tency. Yet  so  vast  was  his  nature  that  it  would  be 
incorrect  to  think  of  him  as  untrustworthy  or  utterly 
without  moral  principles.^  There  were,  in  fact,  two 
Mirabeaus,  the  great  animal  who  came  into  the 
Assembly  with  face  still  bleeding  from  the  leeches  his 
dissipations  had  made  necessary,  and  the  orator  and 
statesman,  the  implacable  enemy  of  anarchy  and 
privilege,  who  swayed  a  hostile  Assembly  or  club 
with  his  eloquence  while,  with  Cassandra-like  accu- 
racy, he  foretold  the  fatal  results  of  mistakes  he  was 

*The  great  works  on  Mirabeau  are  Lom^nie,  Les  Mirabeau^  and  Stern. 
Das  Leben  Mirabeaus.  In  English,  the  best  study  is  that  of  Von  Hoist, 
The  French  Revolution  Tested  by  the  Career  of  Mirabeau.  In  addition,  see 
Willert,  Mirabeau,  and  the  essays  by  Carlyle,  Macaulay,  and  Reeves  (Rtyal 
and  Republican  France) .  An  interesting  sketch  is  that  of  McCarthy,  French 
Revolution,  I,  ch.  29.  A  sidelight  upon  the  pre-revolutionary  importance  of 
Mirabeau  is  given  by  Fling,  "Mirabeau  and  Calonne  in  1785,"  Am.  Hist. 
Assoc,  1897, 131. 

•The  pre-revolutionary  career  of  Mirabeau  (1774-1789)  cannot,  unfor- 
tunately, be  here  considered,  yet  it  was  of  sufficient  importance  to  make 
him  a  leading  factor  in  the  develot)ment  of  the  revolutionary  spirit.  See 
especially  Fling,  "  Mirabeau,  an  Opponent  of  Absolutism,"  in  Nebraska 
University  Studies,  II,  No.  i  (July,  1894);  "  Mirabeau  a  Victim  of  the  Lettres 
de  Cachet,"  Am.  Hist.  Rev.,  Oct.,  1897. 

*La  Favette  himself  gives  him  the  credit  of  being  true  to  his  highest 
kleals  for  tne  nation,  even  when  receiving  a  pension  from  the  king. 


i 


The  Reorganization  of  France  i  ^^ 

unable  to  prevent.  Unfortunately  the  two  men  were 
inseparable,  and  the  better  was  hopelessly  handi- 
capped by  the  worse.  So  notorious  were  his  marital 
affairs  and  his  relations  with  his  father  that  he  was 
hissed  when  he  first  entered  the  States  General,  and 
he  seems  to  have  been  suspected  by  all  parties. 
None  the  less,  his  opposition  to  absolutism,  his  recog- 
nized ability  as  a  writer  upon  all  subjects  of  political 
importance,  as  well  as  his  striking  personality,  had 
given  him  preeminence,  and  his  boldness  at  the  royal 
session  and,  far  more,  his  speech  in  September  in 
favor  of  Necker's  proposed  income  tax  gave  him 
undisputed  preeminence.  He  of  all  the  deputies 
perceived  how  much  reform  was  possible.  Bitterly 
opposed  to  the  Old  Regime,  he  saw  that  France  was 
incapable  of  republican  government,  and  consequently 
wished  only  to  change  absolutism  to  constitutional 
monarchy.  But  his  clear  vision  availed  France 
almost  nothing.  Despite  his  increasing  influence 
with  the  people  and  his  position  in  the  Assembly,  he 
was  neither  able  to  induce  La  Fayette — whom  he 
dubbed  Cromwell-Grandison — to  unite  with  him  nor 
to  form  a  coterie  of  followers.  It  is  at  this  point 
that  the  chief  criticism  must  be  passed  upon  his  polit- 
ical career.  In  large  measure,  it  is  true,  this  failure 
was  due  to  the  selfish,  narrow  spirit  of  the  men  to 
whom  he  appealed,  but  this  is  not  the  complete 
explanation;  for  if  Mirabeau  had  the  insight  of  the 
statesman,  he  too  little  trusted  the  organizing 
methods  of\the  politician.  His  relations  with  the 
Assembly,  on  the  whole,  might  almost  be  reduced  to 
this:'  the  Assembly  did  what  Mirabeau  knew  it  should 


1^4  The  French  Revolution 

not  do,  and  left  undone  the  things  that  Mirabeau  knew 
it  should  do. 

The  meetings  of  the  Assembly  were  hopelessly 
disorderly.  Mirabeau  had  laid  before  it  a  trans- 
lation of  Romilly's  rules  governing  the  House  of 
Commons,  but  the  Assembly  wanted  no  aid  from 
England.  Instead  of  a  few  men  meeting,  like  the 
Convention  that  drew  up  the  American  constitution,  in 
secret,  twelve  hundred  men  discussed  constitutional 
articles  before  three  galleries  filled  with  excitable 
crowds.  Further,  the  presiding  officer  was  changed 
every  fortnight.  Genuine  debate  there  was  little  or 
none.  A  member  had  often  literally  to  fight  his  way 
into  the  tribune,  and  once  there  he  shouted  and 
declaimed.  At  any  minute  the  Assembly  was  liable 
to  be  swept  off  its  feet  by  some  passion.  In  the 
midst  of  a  discussion  on  a  national  bank,  excitable 
deputies  took  off  their  silver  knee-buckles  and  threw 
them  upon  the  table  as  a  present  to  the  state.  Visit- 
ors and  petitioners  were  always  received.  The  pro- 
ceedings were  stopped  to  welcome  a  speech-making 
crowd  of  children,  a  newly  married  priest,  or  a  liber- 
ated serf  from  the  Jura  a  hundred  and  twenty  years 
old.  At  one  time  the  Assembly  was  fairly  beside 
itself  with  enthusiasm  as  it  received  Baron  von 
Clootz,  who  marched  in  at  the  head  of  a  troop  of  men 
dressed  like  different  nations,  all  come  to  salute  new 
France  in  the  name  of  the  human  species. 

Yet  through  all  confusion  the  Assembly  kept  stead- 
ily at  its  work  of  producing  a  constitution  for  new 
France.  Here  it  was  confronted  by  another  difficulty. 
It  rapidly   assumed   executive   powers,    and   like   the 


The  Reorganization  of  France  155 

second  Continental  Congress  of  America,  was  con- 
.  ■  fronted  with  the  double  problem  of  producing  a  con- 
I  stitution  and  governing  a  distracted  country.  It  was 
a  fatal  union,  all  the  more  inexcusable  on  the  part  of 
the  Assembly,  since  it  might  have  had  the  benefit  of 
America's  experience.  Still  another  mistake  did  this 
overtaxed  body  make:  it  put  its  constitution  into 
effect  piecemeal.  As  fast  as  an  article  was  adopted 
it  was  put  into  operation,  and  thus  administration 
was  misled  by  political  metaphysics  and  constitutional 
provisions  were  precipitated  by  the  desperate  condi- 
tion of  the  country.  It  is,  in  fact,  impossible  to  dis- 
cuss the  constitution  without  at  the  same  time  consid- 
ering the  entire  reorganization  of  France. 

The  fundamental  principles  which  animated  the 
Assembly  need  not  be  again  set  forth.  They  were 
carefully  codified  in  the  "Declaration  of  Rights  of 
Man  and  of  the  Citizen"  prefixed  to  the  constitution, 
and  embodied  that  teaching  as  to  liberty  and  equality 
philosophers  had  popularized.^  From  any  point  of 
view  the  time  spent  upon  this  declaration  might  bet- 
ter have  been  spent  upon  more  practical  matters;  but 
considering  the  unwieldy  size  of  the  Assembly,  its 
disregard  of  parliamentary  procedure,  and  its  inexperi- 
ence, one  must  admit  that  it  might  have  done  less,  if 
not  worse.  As  regards  fundamentals,  its  work  has 
never  permanently  been  undone.  Its  destructive 
legislation  was  practically  that  imposed  upon  it  by 
the  cahiers  of  its  members,  and  so  far  it  was  the  true 
expression  of  the  new  spirit  of  the  nation.     It  was  in 


For  example,  liberty  of  the  individual,  security  of  property,  safety  of 
s  person,  right  to  resist  oppression,  freedom  of  ; 
and  ofreligion. 


one's  person,  right  to  resist  oppression,  freedom  of  speech,  of  publication, 


ij;6  The  French  Revolution 

accord  with  its  principle  of  equality  that  free  people  of 
color  were  admitted  to  equal  rights  with  whites,  that  all 
titles  of  nobility  were  abolished,  and  that  an  effort  was 
constantly  made  to  reverse  the  conditions  of  the  Old 
Regime — often,  indeed,  to  an  altogether  unwarranted 
extent,  as  in  the  matter  of  taxation  of  the  land  and 
the  support  of  the  proletariat  by  means  of  public 
workshops. 

But  dread  of  a  continuance  of  absolutism  was  quite 
^s  influential  as  love  of  equality,  and  from  the  outset 
the  Assembly  was  determined  to  weaken  the  power  of 
f  the  executive.  Mirabeau  and  a  few  of  the  more  sen- 
sible deputies  were  anxious  for  the  king  to  have  a  veto 
power  over  the  acts  of  the  Assembly,  but  the  populace 
and  the  great  mass  of  deputies  believed  that  to  give 
him  such  power  would  be  to  make  themselves  "slaves 
again."*  Under  the  influence  of  Necker,  an  unfor- 
tunate compromise  was  effected,  by  which  the  king  was 
given  a  "suspensive  veto,"  in  accordance  with  which 
he  could  veto  a  bill,  but  if  it  was  passed  by  the  two 
legislatures  following  that  by  which  it  was  presented 
it  became  a  law.^  Nor  did  the  Assembly  restrict  itself 
to  political  theory.  The  executive  department  of  the 
state  had  continued  as  before  the  States  General,  the 
ministers  carrying  on'  the  various  bureaus.  Necker, 
though  at  the  height  of  his  popularity,  was  growing 
daily  more  incompetent,  and  the  only  two  men  of 
actual  power  were  La  Fayette,  because  of  his  com- 
mand of  the  National  Guards,  and  Mirabeau,  because 

'The  public,  who  had  never  heard  the  word  veto  before,  were  thus  enlight- 
ened by  their  leaders:  "You  are  eating  your  soup.  The  king  comes  along 
and  knocks  the  bowl  from  your  hands.    That  is  a  veto." 

■Sec.  iii,  art.  2,  Tripier,  Constitutions  qui  ont  regi  la  France  de/>uis  lySf) 


The  Reorganization  of  France  1 57 

of  his  position  in  the  Assembly,  Paris,  and  the  prov- 
inces. Evidently  the  sensible  plan  would  have  been 
to  form  a  coalition  ministry,  of  which  La  Fayette  and 
Mirabeau,  if  not  Necker,  should  be  members.  This 
Mirabeau  attempted,  and  in  the  face  of  the  suspicion 
of  the  court  and  the  supercilious  attitude  of  Necker 
and  La  Fayette,  nearly  accomplished.  But  the  Ex- 
treme Right  and  the  Extreme  Left  were  bitterly  jeal- 
ous of  him;  the  less  radical  deputies  were  hysterically 
individualistic  and  in  terror  of  "slavery";  and  the 
f  eyes  of  the  entire  Assembly  were  closed  to  the  need 
of  anything  except  general  principles.  As  a  result, 
in  its  determination  to  maintain  its  independence  dur- 
ing the  time  of  constitution-making,  the  Assembly 
voted  (November  7th)  that  no  deputy  should  be 
allowed  to  receive  office  from  the  king.  This  decree 
was  directly  aimed  at  Mirabeau,  and  it  resulted  in 
ruining  every  possibility  of  his  becoming  a  minister. 
With  this  exclusion  disorder  was  guaranteed,^  and 
unwittingly  the  deputies  had  destroyed  the  monarchy, 
and  had  made  strong  government  in  France  possible 
only  under  terror. 

More  beneficial,  but  hardly  less  doctrinaire^  was  the 
constitutional  provision  for  the  administration  of  the 
nation.  The  provinces  and  intendances  were  abol- 
ished, and  France  was  divided  into  eighty-two  (or 
eighty-three  including  Corsica)  departments,  each 
divided  into  nine  districts,  each  district  into  ten  can- 
tons, and  each  canton  into  ten  municipalities.^     The 

^Mirabeau  repeatedly  urged  the  king  to  bring  about  the  repeal  of  this 
fatal  vote,  but  to  no  purpose.  It  is  generally  believed  that  its  passage  was 
due  to  the  influence  of  Necker  and  La  Fayette. 

*These  were  the  ideal  numbers.  Actually  there  were  83  departments, 
574  districts,  4,730  cantons,  44,000  communes. 


158  The  French  Revolution 

department  and  each  of  its  subdivisions  were  to  have 
their  proper  officers,  each  to  be  elected,  the  electoral 
process  being  very  elaborate.'  Each  department  was 
to  have  at  its  head  a  procureur-general-syndic^  each 
district  a  procureur-syndic^  each  canton  and  depart- 
ment a  procureur.  Each  division  had  also  its  appro- 
priate judiciary.  Each  commune,  or  town  govern- 
ment, further,  had  charge  of  its  own  companies  of  the 
National  Guard,  and  in  other  ways  exercised  really 
sovereign  powers.  In  its  reaction  from  Bourbon 
centralization  the  Assembly  had  practically  destroyed 
all  national  government,  and  broken  France  up  into 
little  democracies.  But  this  was  not  all ;  every  officer, 
judge,  and  council  in  every  administrative  division 
was  to  be  elected,  and  any  citizen  who  did  his  duty 
must  needs  appear  every  few  weeks  at  the  polls.  The 
bourgeois  influence  was  also  felt,  for  citizens  were 
divided  into  two  classes,  the  active — i.  e. ,  those  who 
paid  taxes  equal  to  three  days'  wages;  and  the 
passive^  or  those  who  did  not  pay  such  tax.  The 
franchise  was  limited  to  the  active  citizens,  and  a  con- 
siderable property  qualification  was  set  for  all  officials. 
Thus  in  theory  the  responsible  citizens  were  in  control 
of  the  state.  In  fact,  few  persons  were  really  refused 
the  franchise,  and  the  property  qualification  became 
only  a  source  of  class  hatred.  The  great  powers  this 
administrative  system  would  give  a  municipality,  and 
especially  a  great  city  like  Paris,  are  at  once  evident. 
Its  commune  would  be  a  practically  independent  gov- 

*The  officers  of  the  municipality  and  canton  were  to  be  elected  by  the 
active  citizens  of  the  municipality  and  canton,  respectively;  but  the  officers 
of  the  district  and  department  were  to  be  elected  by  an  electoral  college 
chosen  by  the  citizens  of  the  department. 


I 


The  Reorganization  of  France  159 

ernment,  controlling  its  own  troops,  more  than  able 
to  confront  the  officers  of  the  department  to  which  it 
belonged,  and  certain  to  demand  special  recognition 
from  the  Assembly. 

The  financial  expedients  of  the  Assembly  were,  on 
the  whole,  temporizing  and  injurious.  From  the  first 
it  had  faced  the  financial  problem  unwillingly,  but 
the  deficit  was  growing  steadily,  and  on  August  7th 
Necker  informed  the  Assembly  that  practically  no 
taxes  had  been  collected  for  three  months.^  He 
wished  the  Assembly  to  sanction  a  loan  of  $6,000,- 
000  at  five  per  cent,  for  which  he  had  made  provi- 
sion. The  Assembly  sanctioned  the  loan,  but  blindly 
changed  the  rate  to  four  and  one-half  per  cent.  The 
loan  .consequently  was  not  taken  up.  Three  weeks 
later  Necker  attempted  to  float  a  loan  of  $16,000,000 
at  five  per  cent,  but  failed.  Then  the  state  lived  on 
gifts  for  a  few  weeks,  but  September  29th  Necker 
proposed  an  income  tax  of  twenty-five  per  cent,  to  be 
paid  within  three  years,  the  citizen  himself  simply 
declaring  his  income.  The  scheme  was  preposterous, 
but  Mirabeau  supported  it  as  a  last  resort,  and 
it  was  voted.  But  to  no  purpose.  Taxes  could  not 
be  collected  in  a  state  in  which  the  executive  had 
practically  been  annihilated.  In  November,  Necker 
proposed  that  the  collection  of  the  taxes  should  be 
handed  over  to  Caisse  d' Escompte,  or  Department  of 
Loans,  which  should  advance  a  fixed  sum.  Mirabeau 
opposed  this  plan,  and  it  amounted  to  nothing.  The 
financial   stringency  was  increased  by  the  nobles  and 

'In  June  the  Assembly  had  declared  that  existing  taxes  should  be  paid 
provisionally  until  new  laws  were  passed.  Naturally  the  people  did  not  pay 
provisional  taxes. 


i6o  The  French  Revolution 

wealthy  bourgeois  exporting  their  specie  to  London,  and 
by  the  various  relief  schemes  which  were  being  car- 
ried on  by  Paris.  The  capital  was  spending  $32,000 
a  month  on  public  workshops,  and  in  January  and 
February  lent  $3,400,000  to  the  masses  to  buy  food, 
aVr  of  which  it  borrowed  from  the  national  treasury. 
In  fact,  the  sopialistic  tendency  was  marked,  and  the 
masses  were  being  supported  in  large  part  by  the 
municipality.  Its  need,  in  turn,  reacted  upon  the 
Assembly,  for  the  only  hope  of  national  quiet  lay  in 
the  quiet  of  Paris,  and  this  had  to  be  bought. 

During  this  period  of  financial  desperation  the 
Assembly  had  nationalized  the  royal  domain,  and  in 
October  confiscated  the  real  estate  of  the  church,  and 
then  ordered  the  sale  of  $80,000,000  worth  of  its  land.* 
In  November,  Mirabeau  suggested  the  issuing  of  scrip 
with  this  land  as  collateral,  and  on  March  17,  1790, 
the  Assembly  voted  to  issue  the  first  assignats.  The 
plan  was  very  simple,  and  had  no  further  paper  money 
been  issued,  perfectly  sound.  Eighty  million  dollars 
of  paper  money  were  issued  in  interest-bearing  notes, 
and  these  were  to  be  received  at  their  face  value  in 
payment  for  the  church  lands.  At  first  the  assignats 
circulated  at  par,  but  in  a  few  weeks  speculators  in 
the  church  lands  had  forced  them  down  ten  per  cent, 
and  even  then  the  municipalities  to  whom  the  Assembly 
had  assigned  the  selling  of  the  lands  within  their 
limits,  kept  the  assignats  and  sent  their  own  worthless 
bonds    to   the    national  treasury.''     The   government 

^Talleyrand  was  probably  the  real  author  of  the  scheme. 

'The  shameless  dishonesty  of  some  patriots  is  also  seen  in  that  after 
making  the  first  payment  in  assignats,  by  which  they  were  given  possession 
of  the  lands,  they  cut  off  the  timber  and  decamped  before  the  second  install- 
ment became  due. 


The  Reorganization  of  France  i6i 

really  was  benefited  but  little  by  the  transaction,  and 
within  a  few  months  found  itself  in  new  straits.  So 
terrible  did  a  declaration  of  bankruptcy  seem  to  Mira- 
beau,  that  through  his  influence  (September  27,  1790) 
the  Assembly  voted  an  aUditional  issue  of  $160,000,000 
of  assignats,  though  with  the  solemn  assurance  that 
the  sum  then  in  circulation  ($240,000,000)  should  not 
be  exceeded.  But  the  descent  into  the  Avernus  of 
fiat  money  is  easy.  By  June,  1791,  the  issue  of  Sep- 
tember had  been  used,  and  the  state  was  again  in 
need.  One  hundred  and  twenty  million  dollars  more 
were  issued,  much  of  the  sum  being  in  five-franc  notes, 
whereas  formerly  fifty-franc  had  been  the  smallest 
denomination.  The  result  was  to  people  France  with 
speculators.  The  very  peasant  was  unable  to  tell  the 
value  of  the  crop  he  raised.  Patriotism  has  seldom, 
if  ever,  withstood  an  opportunity  to  grow  rich  at  the 
expense  of  the  country  for  which  one  is  ready  to  die, 
and  every  purchaser  of  state  or  church  land,  looking 
forward  to  future  payments  on  the  same,  was  anxious 
to  depreciate  the  value  of  the  assignats.  Specie  left  the 
country;  trade,  at  first  brisk,  diminished;  and  France 
was  soon  tasting  all  the  miseries  of  a  hopelessly  depre- 
ciated currency.^ 

This  financial  history  was  but  the  reverse  side  of^ 
the  Assembly's  ecclesiastical  policy.     On  the  whole, 
this  was  markedly  generous.     After  nationalizing  the 
property   of  the   church,    it  agreed   to   pay  its  debts 
($30,000,000),   and  while  dissolving  the  monasteries 

'Altogether  during  the  Revolution  48,000,000,000  francs  of  assignats  were 
issued.  See  White,  Pamper  Money  in  France;  Walker,  Money,  336-347; 
Blanc,  History  of  the  French  Revolution,  bk.  xiv,  ch.  3;  Dillaye,  Money  and 
Finances  of  the  French  Revolution;  Stourna,  Les  Finances  de  PAncien 
Regime  et  de  la  Revolution,  11,  277-329. 


1 62  The  French  Revolution 

and  seizing  their  property,  it  agreed  to  pension  the 
monks  and  nuns.  The  state  undertook  to  support  all 
the  clergy  from  the  taxes,  reducing  greatly  the  sal- 
aries of  the  bishops  and  increasing  those  of  the  curates. 
The  bishops  were  hereafter  to  be  considered  as  the 
servants  of  the  state,  paid  by  the  state.  The  salaries, 
according  to  the  importance  of  the  bishopric,  were  to 
vary  from  $2,500  to  $10,000  a  year.  The  curates 
were  to  have  from  1,200  fr.  to  2,400  fr.  a  year,  besides 
a  house  and  garden.  There  was  much  justice  in  this; 
but  the  position  taken  by  the  Assembly  in  regard  to 
the  political  position  of  the  clergy  was  full  of  danger. 
It  involved  two  specific  provisions.  There  was  to  be 
but  one  bishop  for  a  department  and  one  curate  for 
each  commune,  each  to  be  elected  and  to  take  an  oath 
to  support  the  yet  uncompleted  constitution.  This 
practically  amounted  to  a  break  with  the  Pope.  If 
bishops  were  to  be  elected  by  their  parishioners,  and 
if  they  were  to  be  simply  the  civil  functionaries  of  the 
state,  the  organization  of  the  church  was  evidently 
at  an  end.  Thus  by  the  end  of  the  first  year  since 
the  States  General  the  Catholic  clergy  had  ceased  to 
monopolize  religion,  had  ceased  to  be  a  privileged 
order,  had  ceased  to  be  feudal  lords,  had  ceased  to  be 
subject  to  the  Pope.^ 

It  was  inevitable  that  resistance  should  be  made 
to  such  radical  changes.  The  bishops  refused  to  take 
the  civic  oath,  and  July  24,  1790,  a  law  was  passed 
that  unless  the  oath  were  taken  no  priest  or  bishop 
should  remain  in  office.  Only  four  bishops  took  the 
oath.     It  was  but  natural,  therefore,  that  a  bull  of 

»See  Debidour,  VEglise  et  VEiat  en  France,  pt.  i,  chs.  i,  2. 


The  Reorganization  of  France  163 

April  13,  1791,  should  denounce  this  civil  constitution 
of  the  clergy,  as  based  on  heretical  principles,  and 
that  as  a  result,  good  Catholics  should  regard  the  ser- 
vices of  all  civic  priests  as  without  efficacy  in  birth, 
marriage,  and  death.  In  Alsace  a  petition  against  the 
nationalization  of  the  church  estates  was  signed  by 
twenty-one  thousand  persons,  including  Lutherans 
and  Jews  as  well  as  Catholics.  In  this  case  the  oppo- 
sition was  doubtless  economic,  as  the  sale  of  the 
church  lands  was  sure  to  injure  the  tenant-farmers. 
But  in  other  parts  of  France  religious  sympathies  were 
more  in  evidence,  and  so  anarchic  was  the  nation  that 
miniature  religious  wars  broke  out  in  several  cities. 
Later,  -the  attempt  to  enforce  the  civil  constitution  of 
the  clergy  in  the  Vendue  gave  rise  to  a  great  uprising 
against  the  revolutionary  government. 

These  and  other  disorders  showed  plainly  the 
untrustworthy  condition  of  the  entire  military  force. 
It  has  already  appeared  that  after  the  fall  of  the  Bas- 
tille the  bourgeois  class  throughout  France  began  to 
form  the  so-called  National  Guards.  Under  the  con- 
stitution this  military  force  was  firmly  established, 
both  as  a  reserve  and  as  a  militia  to  maintain  order. 
But  the  regular  army  was  still  in  existence,  and  the 
Assembly  proceeded  to  reform  it.  This  was  all  the 
more  imperative  since  the  men  were  now  under 
the  influence  of  the  current  thought  about  equality, 
and  demanded  that  they  as  well  as  other  men  should 
have  a  share  in  the  new  order  of  things.  The  Assem- 
bly therefore  raised  the  pay  of  the  soldiers,  opened 
the  rank  of  commissioned  officers  to  all  classes,  and 
itself  assumed  control  of  the  entire  military  establish- 


164  The  French  Revolution 

ment,  leaving  to  the  king  the  right  to  appoint  only  the 
commander-in-chief  and  the  marshals.  Had  some 
way  been  devised  by  which  discipline  could  be  reestab- 
lished, these  military  reforms  would  have  been  very 
beneficial;  as  it  was,  however,  with  the  exception  of 
the  Swiss  and  German  mercenaries,  the  entire  army 
grew  insubordinate,  suspicious  of  its  officers,  and  gen- 
erally more  in  need  of  being  guarded  than  capable  of 
maintaining  order. 

With  the  judiciary,  perhaps,  the  Assembly  was 
more  successful.  The  Parlements  were  abolished, 
local  courts  were  authorized  in  every  administrative 
division,  with  appeals  from  the  lower  to  the  higher. 
Juries  were  to  try  all  criminal  cases.  In  accordance 
with  the  general  passion  for  voting,  all  judges  and 
juries  were  to  be  elected.  A  new  institution  was  the 
establishment  of  a  high  court  to  try  cases  of  treason. 

Finally,  as  regards  the  legislative  body  of  the 
nation,  the  Assembly  decided  that  it  should  have  but 
one  chamber,  its  members  to  be  elected  by  the  differ- 
ent departments.  The  absence  of  a  second  chamber 
made  hasty  legislation  easy,  and  this  fact,  when 
coupled  with  the  impracticable  suspensive  veto,  was 
calculated  to  lead  to  friction  between  the  legislative 
and  the  executive  branches  of  the  government.  This 
over-emphasis  upon  legislation  which  the  constitution 
of  1 791  everywhere  shows  was  only  a  reflection  of  the 
dominating  spirit  of  the  Constituent  Assembly.  It 
believed  men  could  be  made  happy  and  the  nation 
orderly  by  proclamations  and  laws.  It  was  this  belief, 
born  of  the  enjoyment  of  new  privileges  and  the 
remembrance  of  former  "slavery,"  that  explains  the 


The  Reorganization  of  France  165 

Assembly's  disregard  of  administration,  of  discipline 
in  the  army,  and  severe  repression  of  disorder  among 
the  peasantry.  If  ever  a  strong  government  is  needed, 
it  is  when  a  country  is  just  experiencing  the  intoxica- 
tion of  new  liberties,  but  this,  as  we  have  seen,  was 
the  one  thing  the  Assembly  was  unable,  even  unwil- 
ling, to  give  France.  In  this  as  in  other  particulars 
it  accurately  represented  the  philosophical,  idealistic 
temper  of  the  class  of  society  from  which  it  was 
elected.  But  like  all  idealists,  it  could  not  see  that 
it  was  confronted  by  facts  and  not  theories;  by 
Frenchmen  and  not  natural  men.  Its  principles  were 
noble;  the  men  it  would  benefit  were  unprepared  to 
live  nobly;  individualism  was  carried  to  extremes; 
repressive  government  was  judged  unworthy  of  the 
new  age.  And  in  these  facts  lay  the  explanation  of 
the  next  phase  of  the  Revolution.^ 

^The  different  estimate  placed  upon  the  work  of  the  Assembly  by  open- 
eyed  contemporaries  is  to  be  seen  in  Kabaut  St.  Etienne,  French  Revolution  ; 
Burke,  Reflections  on  the  French  Revolution,  and  the  running  commentary 
of  Mirabeau  in  his  papers  sent  La  Marckand  Montmorin.  Popular  anticipa- 
tions are  to  be  seen  in  Arthur  Young,  Travels. 


CHAPTER    XIII 

THE    PROGRESS    OF   THE    REVOLUTIONARY   SPIRIT' 

I.  The  Festival  of  the  Confederation,  July  14,  1790.  II.  Mira- 
beau  and  the  Court.  III.  The  Activity  of  Radical  Revo- 
lutionists. IV.  Forces  Making  toward  Radicalism:  1. 
State  Socialism;  2.  The  Jacobin  Club;  3.  The  Cordelier 
Club;  4.  The  Indifference  of  the  Bourgeoisie  to  Voting; 
5.  The  Death  of  Mirabeau;  6.  The  Flight  of  the  King; 
7.  The  "  Massacre  of  the  Champs  de  Mars."  V.  The  End 
of  the  Constituent  Assembly. 

On  February  4,  1790,  Louis  unexpectedly  came  to 
the  Assembly,  and  after  a  short  speech  intended  to 
offset  certain  suspicions  as  to  a  proposed  flight,  in  his 
own  name  and  that  of  the  queen  and  his  young  son 
solemnly  took  the  civic  oath  to  abide  by  the  new  order 
of  things.  The  Assembly  was  raised  to  a  high  pitch 
of  loyal  enthusiasm,  and  with  great  cheering  voted 
the  king  its  thanks.  But  his  oath  suggested  similar 
action,  and  every  deputy  came  forward  and  in  his  turn 
took  the  civic  oath;  then  the  substitute  deputies,  the 
galleries,  the  crowd  about  the  doors,  all  took  the  same 
oath,  until  the  building  fairly  trembled  with  shouts  of 
"I  swear  it."  From  the  Assembly  the  oath  passed 
through  Paris,  and  from  town  to  town  over  all  France. 
Never  was  the  spirit  of  the  country  more  heartily 
loyal  andliopeful,  and  the  Assembly  determined  that 

*In  general,  see  Stephens,  French  Revolution,  I,  chs.  11,  14,  i5;Tainc, 
French  Revolution,  II,  bk.  iv,  chs.  1,  2;  Von  Ho\zi,  French  Revolution,  II, 
chs. 10-12.  ^ 

166 


The  Progress  of  the  Revolutionary  Spirit    167 

the  first  anniversary  of  the  fall  of  the  Bastille  should 
be  celebrated  on  a  gigantic  scale  as  a  national  festival 
of  confederation. 

Thousands  of  persons  of  all  classes  worked  furi- 
ously to  arrange  seats  of  turf  in  the  great  Champs  de 
Mars.  Invitations  were  sent  out  to  all  the  depart- 
ments to  send  delegates.  Enthusiasm  redoubled  as 
these  representatives  began  to  arrive  in  the  city,  and 
when  July  14,  1790,  arrived,  rainy  though  it  was,  four 
hundred  thousand  persons  and  sixty  thousand  troops 
were  assembled.  In  the  midst  of  the  great  field  stood 
an  altar  upon  a  base  twenty-five  feet  high.  And 
there,  surrounded  by  three  hundred  priests,  Talley- 
rand^ performed  mass,  accompanied  by  the  booming  of 
cannon.  La  Fayette,  as  commander  of  the  National 
Guards,  received  the  form  of  oath  from  the  king, 
carried  it  to  the  altar;  and  then  the  soldiers,  the 
deputies,  the  king,  with  arms  outstretched,  took  the 
oath.  The  queen  held  out  the  little  dauphin  to  the 
people,  and  the  vast  company  burst  into  shouts  of 
wildest  enthusiasm.  At  the  same  moment  all  over 
France  smaller  bodies  of  citizens  were  stretching  out 
their  arms  and  swearing  the  same  oath.  That  night 
Paris  was  illuminated,  and  people  danced  on  the  spot 
where  the  Bastille  had  stood  a  year  before,  the  symbol 
of  a  now  departed  absolutism.  No  other  nation  could 
or  would  have  undertaken  such  a  celebration,  but  to 
France  it  seemed  as  if  liberty  was  at  last  achieved, 
and  all  suspicion  of  the  king's  sincerity  was  stilled. 
Had  Louis  but  accepted  Mirabeau's  advice,  and  from 
that  moment  energetically  put  himself  at  the  head  of 

'  "Don't  make  me  laugh,"  he  said  to  La  Fayette. 


1 68  The  French  Revolution 

the  new  national  movement,  there  can  be  little  doubt 
the  nation's  loyalty  would  never  have  been  less.' 

This  celebration  of  July  14,  1790,  not  only  shows 
how  thoroughly  national  the  Revolution  was,  but  it 
marks  the  acme  of  its  idealistic  phase.  If  we  except 
the  details  to  be  formally  incorporated  in  the  consti- 
tution during  the  succeeding  months,  all  benefits  had 
been  done  France  that  were  to  be  permanent.  Abso- 
lutism, privileges,  unjust  taxation  and  feudal  dues, 
the  provincial  divisions,  the  parlements,  all  had  for- 
ever disappeared,  and  there  was  left  to  king  and  cour- 
tiers simply  the  duty  of  accommodating  themselves  to 
the  new  condition  of  affairs.  The  problems  left  were 
at  bottom  administrative,  and  the  fact  that  Mirabeau 
was  giving  advice  might  have  been  a  basis  of  help.^ 
For  several  months  he  had  been  coming  more  into 
touch  with  the  king.  In  a  full  statement  of  his 
political  belief  he  had  declared  his  persistent  devotion 
to  royalty  and  his  determination  to  aid  it  as  the  one 
means  of  restoring  tranquillity  to  the  nation,  but  on 
the  sole  condition  that  the  king  should  sincerely  and 
without  reservation  accept  the  reforms  accomplished 
and  put  himself  at  the  head  of  a  constitutional 
government.  It  was  with  no  disloyalty,  therefore,  to 
his  original  principles  that  he  secretly  accepted  a  large 

'  Illustrations  of  the  loyalty  of  the  departments  are  numerous.  As  the 
deputies  from  the  departments  were  presented  to  Louis,  the  leader  of  those 
from  Brittany  knelt  and  presented  Louis  his  sword,  saying:  "  I  place  in 
your  hands  the  faithful  sword  of  the  Bretons;  it  shall  only  be  reddened  by 
the  blood  of  your  foes."  Louis  raised  and  embraced  him,  and  returned  the 
sword,  saying:  "It  can  never  be  in  better  hands  than  in  those  of  my  brave 
Bretons.  I  have  never  doubted  their  loyalty  and  affection;  assure  them  that 
I  am  the  father  and  brother,  the  friend  of  all  Frenchmen."  "Sire,"  replied 
the  deputy,  "every  Frenchman  loves,  and  will  continue  to  love  you,  because 
you  are  a  citizen-kmg."    Carlyle  has  a  most  vivid  account  of  this  celebration. 

'To  understand  the  true  relations  of  Mirabeau  with  the  court,  see 
Correspondance  entre  Mirabeau  et  La  Marck.  This  correspondence,  also, 
is  invaluable  as  a  running  commentary  on  the  course  of  the  Revolution.    . 


The  Progress  of  the  Revolutionary  Spirit     169 

pension  from  the  king,  and  repeatedly  counseled  the 
representative  of  the  court  as  to  the  proper  course  of 
conduct.  The  details  of  the  plans  varied  according 
to  the  circumstances  of  the  day,  but  their  main  pur- 
pose was  to  prevent  counter-revolution,  to  lead  Louis 
to  see  the  real  benefits  of  the  destructive  work  of  the 
Assembly,  and,  especially  at  first,  to  induce  him  to 
make  the  government  less  Parisian  by  leaving  the 
capital  and  establishing  himself  and  a  new  Assembly, 
supported  by  the  departments,  in  some  city  where  the 
pressure  of  the  mob  would  be  removed. 

By  no  advice,  however,  could  Mirabeau  accomplish 
anything,  because  of  the  insincerity  of  the  queen,  the 
inertia  of  the  king,  the  jealous  puritanism  of  La 
Fayette,  and  the  incapacity  of  Necker.  The  latter, 
indeed,  resigned,  and  retired  to  Switzerland  in  Sep- 
tember, 1790,  but  the  other  sources  of  difficulty 
remained.  In  the  face  of  Mirabeau's  warnings,  reac- 
tion grew  more  open.  The  Right  in  the  Assembly 
urged  on  extravagant  legislation  in  order  to  bring  the 
Assembly  into  disrepute;  the  clergy  preached  against 
the  sacrilege  done  the  church;  the  nobility  constantly 
left  the  kingdom  for  other  countries,  there  to  excite 
Europe  against  the  Assembly,  and  if  possible  to  secure 
troops  with  which  to  reinstate  the  Old  Regime;  the 
officers  of  the  standing  army  grew  hostile  to  the  gov- 
ernment they  had  sworn  to  serve;  the  clergy  of  Jales 
organized  against  the  government,  and  their  league 
was  to  grow  into  a  secret  confederation  against  the 
new  ecclesiastical  legislation;  England  seemed  on 
the  point  of  involving  the  country  in  a  war  through 
its  quarrel  with  Spain,  the  ally  of  France,  over  Nootka 


lyo  The  French  Revolution 

Sound;  and  the  attitude  of  Germany  and  Austria 
justified  apprehension.  The  practical  question  was. 
as  Mirabeau  saw,  who  should  control  and  direct  the 
masses  of  the  departments.  Those  of  Paris  might 
safely  be  trusted  to  attain  slowly  to  sobriety  under 
the  influence  of  the  National  Guard  and  La  Fayette. 

But  Mi,rabeau'swor4s  were  unheeded.  This  appeal 
to  the  nation  the  court  would  not  make.  The  inaction 
was  fatal.  While  the  nobility  were  hoping  for  some 
miraculous  undoing  of  the  New  Regime,  and  the 
bourgeoisie  grew  complacently  indifferent  to  strong 
government,  the  Extxejue^Left^was  organizing  public 
opinion  throughout  the  masses  of  the  entire  nation. 
And  when  this  spirit  had  once  expressed  itself  at  the 
polls,  a  new  revolution  had  begun. 

This  new  radicalism  may  be  traced  directly  to 
that  revolutionary  spirit  whose  steady  growth  has 
already  been  noticed.  It  was  incipiently  social- 
istic, in  that  men  had  come  to  hold  that  the  state 
should  aid  the  municipalities,  maintain  public  work- 
shops for  the  benefit  of  the  unemployed,  and  by  the 
latter  part  of  1790  these  establishments  and  their 
beneficiaries  had  become  so  numerous  as  to  constitute 
a  severe  tax  upon  the  well-to-do  classes.  The  influ- 
ence of  the  municipalities  is  also  seen  in  the  legisla- 
tion of  the  Assembly.  The  explanation  of  the  aboli- 
tion of  certain  indirect  taxes  and  the  retention  of 
others  lies  almost  entirely  in  their  bearing  upon  the 
cities,  and  above  all  upon  Paris.  In  fact,  the  Com- 
mune of  Paris  practically  dictated  the  fiscal  policy  of 
the  Assembly. 

Back  of  the  new  spirit  of  the  masses  lay  the  work 


The  Progress  of  the  Revolutionary  Spirit     171 

of  the  Society  of  the  Friends  of  the  Constitution,  bet- 
ter known  as  the  Jacobin  .Club.  In  1789,  while  the 
Assembly  was  still  in  Versailles,  a  body  of  what  were 
then  rather  extreme  liberals  began  dining  together 
for  the  purpose  of  discussing  the  policy  of  reform. 
It  was  first  known  as  the  Breton  Club,  and  afterward 
as  the  Society  of  the  Friends  of  the  Constitution,  and 
included  many  distinguished  men,  among  them  La  Fay- 
ette, Talleyrand,  and  Mirabeau.  After  the  Assembly 
went  to  Paris,  the  club  met  in  a  small  room  and,  later, 
in  the  library  of  a  monastery  belonging  to  the  Domin- 
icans, known  popularly  as  the  Jacobins,  because  of 
their  church  of  St.  James.  This  nickname  passed  to 
the  club.  In  Paris  it  rapidly  grew  less  moderate.  The 
leaders  of  the  Extreme  Left,  who  were  too  few  and 
advanced  to  have  influence  in  the  Assembly,  soon 
became  the  most  important  among  its  members 
through  their  great  earnestness  and  their  popularity 
among  the  masses.  By  the  end  of  1790  the  Jacobins 
numbered  more  than  a  thousand  members,  and  had 
ceased  to  be  merely  a  debating  club,  but  were  seeking 
to  influence  the  populace  of  Paris.  In  1791  La  Fay- 
ette and  the  more  moderate  members  withdrew,  to 
V  form  the  short-lived  and  ineffective  club  of  the 
iFejAiJlants^^-^nd  men  like  Robespierre  were  left  in 
full  control.^  Similar  clubs  were  formed  throughout 
France.  In  every  municipality  the  citizens,  no  longer 
the  indifferent  persons  described  by  Arthur  Young, 
met  to  discuss  the  matters  which  busied  the  Assem- 
bly,   and   to   express   their   views   by  votes.      Their 

'On  the  Jacobin  Club,  by  far  the  most  important  work  is  Aulard,  La  So- 
ciete  des  Jacobins. 


IJl 


The  French  Revolution 


information  came  through  the  Parisian  newspapers, 
which  by  1791  had  attained  a  vast  circulation  and 
consequent  influence.  At  the  outset  these  clubs  were 
under  the  control  of  the  well-to-do  classes,  and  in 
fact  were  seldom  if  ever  led  by  members  of  the  prol- 
etariat. In  the  course  of  time,  however,  the  more 
conservative  element  tired  of  perpetual  discussion, 
and  gradually  withdrew.  The  control  of  the  clubs 
then  passed  to  young  lawyers  who  embraced  the  cause 
of  the  masses  and  soon  became  as  hostile  to  the  bour- 
geoisie as  to  the  aristocracy. 

All  these  clubs  were  profound  admirers  of  the 
Jacobin  Club  of  Paris,  and  by  the  beginning  of  1791 
were  gradually  affiliating  with  that  body.  Through 
these  confederated  clubs  the  radicals  of  Paris  rapidly 
acquired  the  control  of  the  voting  bodies  of  all  the 
municipalities  of  France,  and  were  able  so  to  unify 
political  action  as  in  a  measure  to  anticipate  the  mod- 
ern political  party.  The  general  program  of  the  affili- 
ated clubs  was  based  upon  popular  sovereignty,  and,  by 
degrees,  became  hostile  to  monarchy  as  an  institution. 

Almost  as  influential  in  Paris,  though  far  less  so  in 
the  departments,  was  the  ^uc^^ilS^^l^t).  Its  name, 
like  that  of  the  Jacobins,  was  derived  from  a  monas- 
tery in  which  its  meetings  were  held.  From  its  incep- 
tion it  was  radical,  its  members  including  Danton, 
Marat,  Camille  Desmoulins,  Hebert,  Legendre.  All 
these  men  were  opposed  to  compromise,  and  were 
anxious  to  destroy  every  vestige  of  the  Old  Regime, 
monarchy  as  well  as  feudalism.' 

»It  should  not  be  overlooked  that  the  Jacobin  and  the  Cordelier  were 
by  no  means  the  only  clubs  in  Paris.  Nor  were  all  clubs  composed  of  radi- 
cals.   There  were  the  Club  of  1789,  composed  of  moderate  men  like  La 


The  Progress  of  the  Revolutionary  Spirit    173 

This  supremacy  of  the  more  violent  revolutionists 
in  the  clubs  was  part  of  a  process  through  which  the 
entire  nation  was  passing.  After  the  enthusiasm  of 
July  14,  1790,  the  majority  of  Frenchmen  believed 
further  attention  on  their  part  to  affairs  of  state  was  not 
needed;  they  had  won  their  cause,  and  were  content 
now  to  let  government  manage  itself.  Thus  the  "sov- 
ereign people"  rapidly  resolved  itself  into  an  aggres- 
sive minority,  composed  of  the  lower  classes,  managed 
by  Jacobins.^  It  is  safe  to  say  that  at  any  moment  in 
the  Revolution  this  minority  could  have  been  defeated, 
and  that  in  1791  its  political  power  could  have  been 
destroyed  if  the  other  elements  of  society  had  gone  to 
the  polls.  ^  As  it  was,  this  minority  was  made  increas- 
ingly violent,  not  alone  by  journalists  like  Desmoulins 
and  Marat,  and  such  Jacobins  as  Robespierre  and 
Potion,  but  also  by  thoroughly  brutal  men,  like  San- 
terre  and  Hebert  in  Paris  and  a  multitude  of  local 
leaders  throughout  the  departments.  There  the 
struggle  between  the  local  Jacobins  and  the  order- 
loving  bourgeoisie  was  more  violent  and  more  often 
marked    by    bloodshed    than    in    Paris,     where    the 

Fayette,  Sieyes,  and  Talleyrand;  the  Feuillant  Club,  composed  of  deputies 
who  had  seceded  from  the  Jacobins;  the  non-partisan  Club  of  Valois;  the 
royalist  Monarchical  Club,  which,  however,  was  suppressed  as  soon  as  it 
attempted  to  win  the  masses  by  supplies  of  food.  But  none  of  these  clubs 
were  of  anything  like  the  importance  of  the  Jacobin  and  Cordelier. 

'Taine,  French  Revolution,  II,  31,  32,  gives  authorities  and  figures.  In 
Paris,  in  August,  67,200  voters  out  of  81,400  did  not  vote,  and  three  months 
later  the  absentees  numbered  71,408.  In  the  departments  the  disparity  is 
far  greater.  At  Grenoble  2,000  of  the  2,Soo  registered  voters  did  not  appear 
at  the  polls,  and  even  fewer  at  Limoges.  Even  when  persons  were  chosen 
members  of  the  electoral  college,  they  did  not  take  the  trouble  to  perform 
their  duties.  Of  946  Parisian  electors  only  200  voted;  and  again  in  the  de- 
partments the  same  neglect  is  to  be  observed. 

'This  conclusion  is  supported  by  these  figures:  In  Paris,  out  of  more 
than  81,000  registered  voters,  only  6,700  voted  for  Petion  as  mayor,  yet  he 
received  the  majority  of  the  votes  cast.  In  1792,  he  was  elected  by  about 
14,000  out  of  160,000  registered  voters.  The  case  was  similar  in  the  depart- 
ments.   See  Taine,  French  Revolution,  II,  46. 


174  The  French  Revolution 

National  Guard  had  come  to  be  feared.  The  estab- 
lishment of  royalist  or  conservative  clubs  was  nearly 
always  followed  by  riots.  Mobs  frequently  lynched 
men  suspected  of  being  ^'aristocrats, "  and  at  Aix 
their  victim  was  the  procurateur-general-syndic  of  the 
department.  In  Avignon'  the  Jacobins,  under  a 
wagoner  named  Jourdan,  massacred  sixty-one  persons 
and  threw  their  bodies  into  the  tower  of  the  Glaciere.'^ 
Even  worse  acts  of  violence  occurred  in  the  colonies, 
and  especially  in  San  Domingo,  where  the  negroes 
rose  against  the  whites. 

Mirabeau  himself  seems  to  have  felt  the  pressure 
of  the  new  spirit,  for  during  the  last  months  of  his  life 
his  speeches  in  the  Assembly  were  on  a  plane  distinctly 
nearer  that  of  the  demagogue.^  This  change  may  be 
ascribed  both  to  the  temper  of  those  who  prepared  his 
speeches — for  Mirabeau  frequently  delivered  those  he 
himself  had  not  written,  and  at  least  in  one  case  had 
not  even  read  over — and  to  his  later  and  questionable 
policy  of  discrediting  the  Assembly  in  order  to  bring 
about  a  partial  reaction  in  favor  of  the  monarchy. 
But    neither   is   the    complete    explanation.      There 

*  Avignon  had  been  the  home  of  the  Popes  during  the  so-called  Babylonish 
Captivity  in  the  fourteenth  century,  and  at  the  time  of  the  Revolution  it  was 
still  under  the  papal  legate.  The  French  Jacobin  party  was  in  the  minority, 
but  gathered  a  mob  of  bloodthirsty  peasants  and  under  the  direction  of 

iourdan  inaugurated  a  reign  of  terror,  but  order  was  restored  by  the 
lational  Guard.  Then  began  a  miniature  civil  war  between  the  citizens 
who  wished  to  remain  subiect  to  the  Pope  and  those  who  wished  to  unite 
Avignon  to  France.  By  the  summer  of  1791  commissioners  appointed  by 
the  Constituent  Assembly  advised  that  the  union  be  permitted  and  that 
troops  be  sent  to  maintain  order.  Through  the  inefficiency  of  the  ministry 
these  did  not  arrive  promptly. 

'Jourdan  returned  to  Avignon  and  lived  unmolested  until  July,  1794, 
when  he  was  guillotined  by  the  deputy  on  mission  as  a  moderate  republican! 
'For  the  most  important  of  the  speeches  of  Mirabeau  and  the  other 
orators  of  the  Revolution,  see  Stephens,  The  Orators  of  the  French  Revolu- 
tion; on  the  question  of  the  authorship  of  those  of  Mirabeau,  see  Aulard, 
Les  Orateurf  de  la  Constititanic,  130-170. 


The  Progress  of  the  Revolutionary  Spirit    175 

was  in  addition  the  necessity  of  using  the  Jacobins. 
"Ill-fated  nation!"  he  wrote  in  December,  1790,  "to 
this  hast  thou  been  brought  by  some  men,  who  have 
supplanted  talent  by  intrigue  and  conceptions  by  com- 
motions."  At  the  time  he  wrote  these  words  he  was 
president  of  the  Jacobins,  and  was  evidently  fight- 
ing for  strong  government  with  the  weapons  of  dema- 
gogues. How  far  he  was  from  approving  the  radicalism 
of  the  club  appears  from  the  fact  that  February  28, 
1791,  he  was  forced  to  defend  himself  at  one  of  its 
sessions  because  of  his  having  opposed  a  high-handed 
law  against  emigration;  but  affairs  were  in  such  a 
condition  that,  as  his  opponent,  Lameth,  said  in  his 
attack  upon  him  at  the  club,  only  from  the  midst  of 
the  Jacobins  could  he  wield  the  lever  of  opinion. 

Yet  even  thus  the  case  was  nearly  hopeless  for  a 
man  suspected  of  having  been  bought  by  the  king,^ 
and  we  can  only  speculate  as  to  what  would  have 
been  his  influence  in  1792.  That  he  could  have 
stopped  the  drift  toward  a  republic  and  the  despotism 
of  popular  leaders  is  not  probable.  In  1794  friend- 
ship with  him  was  one  of  the  charges  that  brought 
Danton  to  the  guillotine.  Perhaps  it  was  fate's  one 
kindly  act  in  his  strangely  resultless  life  that  he  died 
before  the  great  struggle  over  the  monarchy  really 
opened. 

To  the  last  he  strove  to  accomplish  the  impossible. 
The  court  apparently  counted  him  as  simply  one  enemy 
bribed  to  silence.  La  Fayette  would  not  soil  himself 
by  any  combination  with  him;  the  Jacobins  hated  him 

^Newsdealers  were  selling  on  the  streets  of  Paris  a  pamphlet,  "'The 
Great  Treason  of  Count  Mirabeau," 


176  The  French  Revolution 

for  his  moderation ;  tlie  Assembly  rejected  his  sane  pro- 
posals, and  adopted  only  those  in  which  he  temporized 
with  demagogism;  Montmorin,  minister  of  foreign 
affairs,  alone  appreciated  his  clear  vision,  and  practi- 
cally allowed  him  as  a  member  of  the  diplomatic  com- 
mittee of  the  Assembly  to  manage  the  foreign  relations 
of  the  state.  His  early  death,  like  his  political  failure, 
came  on  April  2,  1791,  as  a  penalty  of  his  dissipations. 
He  was  buried  with  immense  pomp  in  the  Pantheon; 
but  less  than  three  years  later  his  body  was  removed 
to  make  room  for  that  of  Marat. 

The  months  that  followed  were  filled  with  attacks 
upon  royalty,  occasioned  by  the  new  opportunities 
given  the  Extreme  Left  by  the  death  of  Mirabeau 
and  by  the  threatening  attitude  of  Europe.  Two  great 
camps  of  emigres  nobles  were  forming  just  over  the 
frontier,  at  Coblentz  and  Worms,  and  at  a  secret  con- 
ference held  in  Mantua,  May  20,  1791,  Austria,  Prussia, 
the  smaller  German  states,  Spain,  Switzerland,  and 
even  England,  agreed  in  vague  terms  to  come  to  the 
help  of  the  king.  The  Assembly  knew  little  or  noth- 
ing of  these  plans,  but  instinctively  suspected  the 
queen  of  treachery,  and  persisted  in  its  reduction  of 
the  royal  power. 

Its  suspicions  were,  on  the  whole,  justified,  for 
Louis  was  making  plans  to  escape  to  Bouill^,  who  was 
in  charge  of  the  military  force  of  Lorraine,  there  to 
put  himself  at  the  head  of  civil  war.  Even  in  this  he 
was  not  unsuspected.  On  the  i8th  of  April,  1791,  he 
had  undertaken  to  drive  out  to  St.  Cloud-in  order  to 
celebrate  mass.  But  the  crowd  thought  he  was  plan- 
ning to  escape,  and  for  twelve  hours  thronged  ahout 


< 


The  Progress  of  the  Revolutionary  Spirit    177 

the  carriages,  preventing  their  moving,  and  Louis 
had  to  give  up  his  plan.  But  the  insult,  as  well  as  the 
revelation  of  his  condition,  stung  him,  and  he  yielded 
to  the  entreaties  of  his  friends,  and  determined  to  flee 
in  real  earnest.  Through  a  Russian  lady  a  large  trav- 
eling-carriage was  ordered  and  passports  taken  out, 
and  on  the  night  of  June  21st  the  king  and  queen  were 
spirited  out  of  Paris  in  cabs  and  started  for  the  fron- 
tier in  the  great  coach,  the  queen  as  the  Russian  lady 
and  Louis  as  her  valet.  ^  The  plan  was  desperate  at 
the  best,  but  was  rendered  even  more  so  by  the 
queen's  preparatory  dressmaking,  her  demands  for 
maids  and  a  bathtub,  and  by  the  king's  refusal  to  go 
by  the  most  direct  roads  in  some  faster  conveyance 
than  the  great  coach.  Bouille,  however,  arranged  his 
troops  at  the  proper  place;  a  charming  adventurer. 
Count  Fersen,  arranged  all  details  in  Paris — which  no 
one  seemed  bright  enough  to  carry  out — and  for  sev- 
eral days  France  was  without  a  king.  Indeed,  it  was 
also  in  a  sort  of  legal  anarchy,  for  before  leaving 
Paris  Louis  drew  up  a  paper  in  which  he  withdrew  his 
signature  to  various  bills  on  the  plea  that  it  had  been 
obtained  by  force.  But  the  flight  proved  a  succession 
of  blunders.  The  fugitives  traveled  so  slowly  that 
Bouill^  thought  the  plan  had  been  abandoned,  and 
did  not  meet  them  at  the  appointed  place.  At  the 
little  town  of  Sainte  Menehould  Louis  put  his  head 
out  of  the  window,  and  was  recognized;  at  Varennes- 

'If  the  plan  is  in  any  way  traceable  to  the  old  advice  of  Mirabeau,  noth- 
ing could  have  been  less  in  accord  with  his  purpose.  Carlyle's  account  of 
this  flight  is  inaccurate  in  details,  but  a  piece  of  marvelous  writing.  For  the 
sober  facts  of  the  case,  see  Oscar  Browning,  The  Flight  to  Varen7ies.  Briefer 
accounts  are  in  McCarthy,  French  Revolution^  II,  chs.  32-3S;  Stephens, 
French  Revolution,  I,  ch.  15. 


178  The  French  Revolution 

the  party  was  stopped ;  the  troops,  who  were  near  by, 
were  unable  or  unwilling  to  render  aid,  and  the 
unhappy  fugitives  in  their  disguises  were  kept  pris- 
oners in  the  home  of  the  mayor,  over  his  grocery-shop, 
and  finally  taken  back  to  Paris  by  the  National  Guards 
and  representatives  of  the  Assembly/ 

From  one  point  of  view,  it  seems  as  if  it  would 
have  been  the  part  of  wisdom  for  the  French  people 
to  let  Louis  escape;  they  would  have  had  one  less 
complication  with  which  to  deal;  they  would  not  have 
been  obliged  to  kill  him.  But  looked  at  from  another 
side,  it  was  exceedingly  fortunate  for  France  that  the 
king  did  not  escape,  and  become  a  nucleus  point 
for  disaffection  and  counter-revolution.  France  in 
1 791  was  less  ready  to  withstand  invasion  than  in 
1792.  And  the  success  of  the  invader  would  have 
meant  the  undoing  of  the  work  of  the  Assembly  and 
the  punishment  of  its  leaders. 

Considered  simply  historically,  we  find  that  this 
attempted  escape  of  the  king  cost  him  the  confidence 
of  the  nation.  It  is  true  that  he  was  received  in  Paris 
without  insult,  and  that  when,  a  few  months  later,  he 
accepted  the  constitution  he  regained  in  a  way  the 
love  of  his  people.  But  the  tide  was  running  out  too 
fast  for  Louis  ever  again,  with  his  vacillating,  com- 
monplace nature,  to  hold  the  love  of  the  nation. 
From  the  day  of  this  flight  toward,  even  if  not  to,  the 
enemies  of  France,  the  monarchy  was  doomed. 

It  is  no  mere  coincidence  that  the  final  separation 

'One  of  these  representatives,  the  Jacobin  Barnave,  was  so  charmed  by 
the  queen  that  he  lost  his  former  enthusiasm  for  the  Revolution,  retired  to 
private  life,  and  was  subsequently  guillotined  as  a  reactionist. 


The  Progress  of  the  Revolutionary  Spirit    179 

of  the  Parisian  bourgeoisie  from  the  masses  is  to  be 
placed  at  almost  the  same  time  as  this  self-inflicted 
blow  to  monarchy.  The  two  were  results  of  the  same 
rapidly  developing  spirit.  For  months  La  Fayette 
had  been  endeavoring  to  maintain  order  in  the  turbu- 
lent capital,  and  at  his  request  the  Assembly  had 
decreed  that  in  case  of  a  more  than  usually  dangerous 
disturbance  a  red  flag  should  be  hung  from  the  Hotel 
de  Ville,  the  riot  act  read  thrice,  and  then  if  the  mob 
did  not  disperse,  the  troops  were  to  fire.  No  occasion 
for  such  drastic  measures  arose  until  after  the  return 
of  the  king  from  Varennes.  At  that  time  Danton, 
a  man  in  many  respects  like  Mirabeau,  and  one  who 
was  to  play  a  great  part  in  the  next  period  of  the 
Revolution,  seeing  that  the  Assembly  was  incapable 
of  good  government,  and  hating  monarchy  as  an 
institution,  proposed  at  the  Cordelier  Club  a  popular 
petition  for  the  removal  and  trial  of  Louis.  The 
Cordeliers  (and  Jacobins  as  well)  approved  the  plan, 
and  despite  the  orders  of  Bailly,  the  mayor  of  Paris, 
the  petition  was  drawn  up,  and  on  July  17,  1791,  laid 
on  the  great  altar  in  the  Champs  de  Mars  for  signature. 
The  Parisian  crowd  was  charmed,  and  the  great  field 
was  alive  with  men  and  women,  half-anxious  to  sign 
the  petition  and  half-curious  to  see  whether  Bailly 
really  would  live  up  to  his  threat  and  disperse  them. 
Everything  went  quietly  until  a  couple  of  men  were 
found  under  the  platform.  Their  explanation  for  their 
presence  was  not  convincing,  and  the  crowd  imme- 
diately suspected  they  were  agents  of  some  diabolical 
royal  gunpowder  plot,  and  tore  them  to  pieces.     A  riot 


i8o  The  French  Revolution 

ensued,  and  the  mob  refused  to  disperse.  Whereupon 
the  red  flag  was  displayed,  the  riot  act  read  by  Bailly, 
and  the  National  Guard  ordered  to  fire  upon  the  crowd. 
As  a  result,  a  number  of  persons  were  killed  or  injured. 
In  itself  this  affair  does  not  appear  important,  but 
its  influence  was  lasting.  It  was  not  merely  that 
republicanism  had  appeared.  The  National  Guard 
was  composed  of  members  of  the  bourgeoisie^  the  crowd 
of  the  masses;  and  this  "Massacre  of  the  Champs  de 
Mars"  became  the  watchword  of  a  new  and  murderous 
class  hatred.'  For  the  moment,  however,  the  party 
of  the  constitution  and  order  had  triumphed.  Danton, 
Marat,  Desmoulins,  Robespierre  disappeared,  and  the 
Assembly  publicly  thanked  the  National  Guard.  But 
the  moderates  did  not  follow  up  their  victory.  The 
Jacobins  almost  immediately  recovered  their  suprem- 
acy, and  through  the  mother  society  the  affiliated 
clubs  were  excited  to  further  opposition  to  monarchy 
and  the  bourgeoisie.  The  mob  of  Paris  might  be  forced 
into  order,  but  the  Jacobin  minority  of  the  depart- 
ments was  to  sweep  the  Revolution  far  beyond  the 
control  of  La  Fayette  and  an  indifferently  civic  and 
militant  bourgeoisie  of  the  capital. 

Yet  so  optimistic  was  the  country  and  so  unwilling 
to  forecast  evil,  that  when,  on  September  14,  1791, 
after  a  fortnight's  consideration,  Louis  accepted  the 
Constitution  and  solemnly  swore  to  uphold  it,  French- 
men believed  the  foundations  of  constitutional  lib- 
erty had  been  laid  forever.  "The  Revolution,"  said 
Robespierre  in  an  address,   September  29,   1791,  "is 

'Bailly  was  (fuillotined  in  1793  on  the  very  spot  where  the  tiring  had 
occurred. 


The  Progress  of  the  Revolutionary  Spirit    i8i 

finished";'  and  Rabaut  St.  Etienne,  a  member  of  the 
Constituent  Assembly,  published  in  1792  his  panegyric 
upon  its  work. 

How  far  mistaken  was  this  optimism  appeared  in 
the  first  expression  of  the  new  revolutionary  spirit  at 
the  polls. 

*The  speech,  which  was  repeatedly  interrupted,  is  in  full  in  Archives 
Parlementaires ,  XXXI,  620.  In  it  Robespierre  argues  that  for  the  very 
reason  that  the  Revolution  is  finished  the  Jacobin  Club  is  needed  to  explain 
and  enforce  the  articles  of  the  Constitution  as  well  as  to  maintain  the  proper 
spirit  of  patriotism. 


CHAPTER    XIV 

FOREIGN   WAR  AND   THE  END  OF  THE  MONARCHY* 

I,  The  Legislative  Assembly:  i.  The  Elections;  2.  The  Giron- 
dins;  3.  Marat,  Danton,  and  Robespierre.  II.  The  Growth 
of  the  Revolutionary  Spirit.  III.  The  War:  i.  The  Giron- 
din  Program;  2.  The  Grounds  for  War;  3.  The  Decla- 
ration of  War.  IV.  Growing  Opposition  to  the  Monarchy: 
I.  The  Two  Vetoes;  2.  June  20,  1792.  V.  August  10,  1792: 
I.  The  Proclamation  01  the  Duke  of  Brunswick;  2.  The 
Preparations;  3.  The  Capture  of  the  Tuileries;  4.  The 
Suspension  of  the  King. 

With  the  first  session  of  the  National  Legislative 
Assembly,  October  i,  1791,  France  began  to  live  under 
its  new  constitution.  Could  Louis  have  been  induced 
to  reign  as  a  constitutional  king,  and  to  abandon  all 
attempts  at  reinstating  the  Old  Regime,  something 
like  quiet  might  have  returned.  But  as  it  was,  the 
entire  nation  was  almost  immediately  convinced  that 
the  court  was  plotting  against  the  new  order  of  things 
and  invoking  foreign  aid  to  help  punish  the  patriots. 
This  suspicion,  apparently  justified  by  so  many  acts 
of  Louis,  made  even  a  constitutional  monarchy  with 
him  as  its  representative  no  longer  possible.  It  was 
not  that  France  as  a  nation  wished  to  be  a  republic ; 
it  was  rather  that  it  was  determined  to  maintain  the 
liberties  gained  by  the  Constituent  Assembly,  amd 
that  it  was  filled  with  abhorrence  of  the  Old  Regime 

*  In  general,  see  Stephens,  French  Revolution,  II,  chs.  1-4;  Carlyle, 
French  Revolution,  bks.  v,  vi;  Thiers,  French  Revolution,  I,  247-331;  Tame, 
French  Revolution,  bk.  iv,  chs.  4-8.  One  should  also  read  such  novels  as 
Erckmann-Chatrian,  The  Country  in  Datiger,  Madame  Therese;  Gras, 
The  Rtds  of  the  Midi. 


^ 


Foreign  War  and  End  of  the  Monarchy     1 83 

and  terror  lest  the  imigris  should  be  able  to  reinstate 
it.  That  this  fear  of  Louis  and  the  dmigrh  was  not 
ungrounded  appeared  within  a  few  months  after  the 
meeting  of  the  new  Assembly. 

The  legislative  Assembly  was  a  very  different  body 
from  that  which  had  drawn  up  the  Constitution.  Upon 
motion  of  Robespierre,  the  Constituent  Assembly,  by 
an  act  of  foolish  but  well-intended  self-denial,  had 
decreed  that  none  of  its  members  should  be  elected  to 
the  succeeding  house.  Accordingly,  the  legislators 
who  assembled  in  1791  to  carry  on  the  affairs  of  the 
nation  were  almost  as  untried  in  statesmanship  and  in 
legislative  proceedings  as  had  been  the  members  of  the 
old  States  General.  The  elections  had  occurred  under 
the  circumstances  already  described,  and,  as  is  always 
the  case,  the  more  radical  candidates  had  generally 
been  elected.  Besides,  there  can  be  little  doubt  that 
the  French  leaped  with  all  facility  into  the  secrets  of 
intimidation  and  counting  out.  Refusal  to  take  the 
civic  oath,  which  included  the  clerical  oath,  threw  out 
thousands.  Many  of  those  who  sought  to  vote,  but  who 
were  known  to  be  opposed  to  or  only  half-hearted  in 
favor  of  the  Revolution,  were  beaten,  stoned,  stabbed. 
In  Montpellier,  for  instance,  the  ballots  were  deposited 
and  the  ballot-boxes  sealed.  The  Conservatives  had 
a  majority.  Thereupon  the  Jacobin  clubs  burned  one 
of  the  boxes,  and  in  the  process  killed  two  men.  A 
riot  followed,  in  which  four  more  men  were  killed,  and 
the  authorities  terrified  into  disarming  the  well-to-do 
inhabitants.  In  the  next  three  days  six  hundred  fam- 
ilies emigrated.  The  authorities  then  reported  that 
the  elections  were  proceeding  in  the  quietest  manner. 


184  The  French  Revolution 

Accordingly,  when  we  come  to  look  at  the  com- 
plexion of  the  new_  Assembly,  we  find  that  it  was 
decidedly  inferior  to  the  Constituent,  although  many 
of  its  members  had  had  some  experience  in  the  new 
administrative  offices.  The  old  reactionary  party 
was  absolutely  wanting,  and  the  men  whose*  opinions 
represented  the  Left  of  the  first  Assembly  had  become 
the  Right  of  the  second,  the  Feuillants  or  ConsJiiu- 
tionalists.  A  nontral  body,  known  as  the  Plain,  or 
■gWaiaii,  occupied  seats  in  the  lower  and  central  part 
of  the  Mil.  The  i:adi£aI.aploiims/flLAh£,-£Klr£ni^^Left  ■ 
of  the  Constituent  Assembly  were  represented  by 
a  large  delegation  known  as  the  Mountain,  from  the 
high  seats  in  which  they  sat.  The  most  ijiipoitaiit 
pa^lti^  however,  in  the  Legislative  Assembly  was  that 
of  the  Girondjns,  who,  with  the  Mountain,  composed 
the  Left.  They  were  all  from  the  departments,  and 
derived  their  name  from  the  fact  that  their  leaders, 
about  whom  they  loosely  gathered,  came  froih  The 
Department  of  the  Gironde,  in  the  south  western  por- 
tion of  France.  The  Girondins  have  been  immortal- 
ized in  the  great  work  of  Lamartine  as  pure-minded 
patriots  who  finally  became  martyrs  to  their  zeal  for 
good  politics.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  they  were  a  body 
of  hot-headed,  inexperienced,  eloquent  young  lawyers, 
full  of  admiration  for  Greeks  and  Romans,  but  with 
scarcely  a  statesmanlike  idea  among  them.  Wherever 
there  was  an  opportunity  for  them  to  make  a  mistake, 
they  enthusiastically  accepted  the  opportunity.^     But 

'The  political  sagacity  of  the  Girondins  may  be  judged  not  only  by  their 
determination  to  establish  a  republic  by  a  foreign  war,  and  the  astonishing 
Constitution  of  Condorcet,  but  by  the  proposal  of  Brissot.  chairman  of  the 
Dii)lomatic  Committee,  that  Dunkirk  and  Calais  be  ceded  to  England  as 
pledges  that  France  would  abide  by  any  treaty  made  with  that  country. 


Foreign  War  and  End  of  the  Monarchy      185 

their  leaders  were  so  eloquent,  and  their  confidence 
in  themselves  so  cheering,  that  for  a  few  months  they 
were  able  to  control  the  policy  of  the  .Assembly* 
Their  program  was  simply  the  abpHtion  of  the  mon- 
archy and  the  establishment  of  arepublic.  Their  high 
priestess  was  Madame  Roland,'  wife  of  a  highly  respect- 
able, conscientious  politician,  double  her  age;  a  bright, 
ambitious  woman,  with  a  touch  of  genius,  a  taste  for 
clubs,  and  a  great  fondness  for  attending  to  her  hus- 
band's business. 

Three  men,  however,  clearly  outranked  all  others 
as  popular  leaders — Marat,  Danton,  Robespierre.  Of 
the  three,  Marat  had  been  prominent  from  the  sum- 
moning of  the  States  General  as  a  fanatical  preacher 
of  popular  vengeance,  but  during  the  restoration  of 
order  by  La  Fayette  and  the  National  Guard  he  had 
seen  his  printing  establishment  broken  up,  and  had  been 
forced  to  hide  himself,  sometimes  even  in  the  sewers. 
With  the  coming  of  the  new  Assembly,  however,  he 
again  took  up  open  conflict  with  the  hated  aristocrats. 
Clear-eyed  as  to  dangers,  his  one  prescription  was  the 
death  of  those  through  whom  dangers  might  arise. 

Far  different  from  Marat  was  Georges  Jacques 
Danton,^  who  under  the  Old  Regime  had  been  a  suc- 
cessful young  lawyer  in  Paris.  He  had  entered  heartily 
into  the  elections  for  the  States  General,  but  soon 
grew  dissatisfied  with  the  work  of  the  Constituent 
Assembly,   and  at  first  favored  a  change  of  dynasty. 

^On  Madame  Roland,  see  Sainte  Beuve,  Portraits  of  Celebrated  Women, 
90;  Lamartine,  GiVow^jj^j  (Bohned.),  1, 272-293;  D&nban,  Etude sur Madame 
Roland;  Yonge,  Life  of  Madame  Roland;  Johnson,  Private  Memoirs  of  P 
Madame  Roland. 

^On  Danton,  see  Bougeart,  Danton;  Belloc,  Danton:  A  Study;  Beesly, 
Life  of  Danton;  Gronlund,  Cq  Ira. 


1 86  The  French  Revolution 

As  the  founder  of  the  Cordelier  Club  he  soon  became 
known  as  an  advanced  revolutionist,  and  in  1791  was 
elected  substitute  to  tht  procureur  of  the  Commune  of 
Paris,  an  official  position  which  gave  him  great  influ- 
ence in  the  capital.  Though  not  of  exceptional  ability, 
he  was  easily  the  most  forceful  man  the  Revolution 
produced  between  Mirabeau  and  Bonaparte.  He  has, 
indeed,  often,  and  with  justice,  been  compared  with 
Mirabeau  in  point  of  eloquence,  resourcefulness,  and 
freedom  from  that  doctrinaire  madness  which  perverted 
the  minds  of  most  of  his  contemporaries.  Unlike 
Mirabeau,  however,  he  was  able  to  organize  a  follow- 
ing, and  was  ready  to  adopt  extreme  measures. 

Totally  unlike  Marat  or  Danton  was  Maximilien 
Robespierre,^  a  young  lawyer  of  thirty-three,  from 
Arras.  He  was  a  precise,  austere,  intense,  mediocre 
little  man  whose  youth  had  been  passed  in  poverty  and 
study.  He  early  became  a  disciple  of  Rousseau,  and 
as  far  as  his  native  town  permitted,  devoted  himself 
to  law  and  literature.  There  remain  to  this  day 
a  few  of  his  poems  and  other  writings,  some  upon 
birds,  and  one  upon  Disgraceful  Punishments.  He 
seems  to  have  been  successful  in  his  law  practice,  and 
was  at  last  appointed  to  a  judgeship.  This,  however, 
he  resigned  after  he  had  been  obliged  to  pronounce 
a  sentence  of  death.  At  the  time  of  his  election  to 
the  States  General  he  had,  therefore,  some  little  repu- 

*The  ^reat  work  upon  Robespierre  is  Histoire  de  Robespierre,  by  his 
enthusiastic  admirer,  Hamel.  In  English  see  G.  H.  Lewes,  Life  of  Maxi- 
milien Robespierre,  and  Morley,  "Robespierre"  in  Critical  Miscellanies,  I; 
Stephens,  "Robespierre,"  Encyclopedia  Britannica;  McCarthy.  French 
Revolution,  I,  ch.  30.  Taine,  French  Revolution,  III,  143-168,  is  character- 
istically severe.  Robespierre's  poem,  "The  Rose,"  is  in  Harper's  Magazine, 
April,  1889.  Its  translator  Mrs.  E.  W.  Latimer* has  reprinted  it  and  other 
biographical  matter  in  her  Scrap  Book  of  the  French  Revolution. 


i\ 


«r- 


Foreign  War  and  End  of  the  Monarchy      187 

tation  as  a  lawyer  and  litterateur^  but  even  less  as 
a  political  theorist.  From  the  time  of  his  appearance 
in  Paris,  however,  he  gradually  rose  in  importance, 
and  as  Mirabeau  prophesied  while  others  were  laugh- 
ing at  him,  he  was  "to  go  far,  since  he  believed  what 
he  said."  As  a  popular  leader  he  had  two  remark- 
able characteristics:  he  was  absolutely  incorruptible 
and  he  refused  to  pander  to  the  mob. 

Thanks  to  their  leaders,  the  advanced  revolution- 
ary spirit  of  the  Jacobins  affected  both  the  Assembly 
and  all  "good  citizens."  Extreme  opposition  to  any- 
thing that  might  look  like  sympathy  with  the  "aris- 
tocracy" became  a  sort  of  fever.  Throughout  all  these 
months  of  deepening  political  distress  the  court  had 
maintained  as  best  it  could  its  old  state.  Balls  and 
receptions,  the  king's  lever^  all  the  rigorous  etiquette 
of  the  Old  Regime  had  continued.  But  now  etiquette 
weakened.  Among  the  first  deeds  of  the  Legis- 
lative Assembly  was  to  abolish  "Sire"  and  "Your 
Majesty"  as  terms  with  which  to  address  the  king, 
and  on  January  i,  1792,  Petion,  the  new  Girondin 
mayor  of  Paris,  did  not  make  the  customary  call  at 
the  royal  palace.  Even  styles  in  clothing  changed. 
Well-to-do  classes  of  the  Old  Regime  had  worn  short 
breeches  with  knee-buckles  and  silk  stockings;  the 
workingmen  had  worn  long  trousers.  The  fashions  of 
the  sovereign  people  had  to  be  followed,  and  all  men 
who  were  good  revolutionists  (except  Robespierre)  put 
away  their  short  trousers,  and  wore  the  long  panta- 
loons, long  beards,  and  the  red  caps  of  the  workingman. 
The  expression  sans -culottes^  or  without  short  breeches, 
became  the  watchword  of  all  good  revolutionists,  and 


1 88  The  French  Revolution 

sanS'CulotHsm  an  expressive  word  to  indicate  the  wild 
extravagances  into  which  the  revolutionists  rushed  in 
their  endeavor  to  show  the  equality  of  all  men. 

With  the  new  Assembly,  Rousseau's  doctrine  of 
popular^  sovereignty  comes  more  than  ever  to  the 
front.  If  the  sessions  of  the  Constituent  Assembly 
had  been  disorderly,  those  of  the  Legislative  were 
riotous.  The  sovereign  people  could  not  be  excluded 
from  the  hall  in  which  their  servants  debated,  and  the 
masses  of  Paris  soon  became  the  dictators  of  legisla- 
tion. They  crowded  into  the  Assembly,  howling  their 
disapproval,  stamping  their  approval  of  the  measures 
passed  by  the  delegates  below.  Brissot,  for  a  long 
time  a  popular  idol,  when  favoring  a  measure  that 
happened  not  to  please  the  sovereigns  in  the  gallery, 
was  pelted  with  plums.  As  another  of  thj^  Girondins 
was  trying  to  push  his  way  up  to  the  door  of  the 
Assembly,  he  met  a  market-woman,  who  stood  in  his 
way;  he  requested  her  to  make  room  for  him,  where- 
upon she  seized  him  by  the  hair,  and  bade  him  (and 
made  him)  bow  his  head  to  his  sovereign! 

With  populace  and  popular  leaders.  Mountain  and 
Girondins  thus  united  in  opposition  to  monarchy, 
despite  the  growing  devotion  of  the  bourgeoisie  to 
constitutional  provisions,^  there  was  almost  certainty 
of  a  republic,  but  the  method  of  reaching  this  end  was 
worthy  of  the  new  spirit  and  the  new  leaders.  Consti- 
tutionally it  was  impossible  to  remove  the  king,  except 
for  some  overt  act,  like  treachery.  His  flight  to 
Varennes  might  have   served  as   the  basis   for  such 

*It  should  be  remembered  that  there  was  in  October,  1791,  a  decided 
reaction  toward  the  king  among  the  more  wealthy  class  of  Parisians.  Morris 
says  that  the  theaters  were  full  of  shouts  for  him  and  the  royal  family.         » 


Foreign  War  and  End  of  the  Monarchy     189 

a  charge,  but  in  the  era  of  good  feeling  succeeding 
Louis'  acceptance  of  the  Constitution  all  unfavorable 
decrees  had  been  repealed,  and  the  king  had  regained 
a  momentary  popularity.  Removal  by  petition  had 
been  stopped  by  the  "Massacre  of  the  Champs  de 
Mars."  There  was  left,  the  Girondins  thought,  but 
one  alternative,  and  that  was  war  with  the  king's 
friends  and  suspected  foreign  allies.  As  a  result  of 
such  a  war,  it  was  believed  Louis  would  soon  be 
detected  in  some  traitorous  act,  and  could  then  be 
legally  suspended. 

The  plan  was  cumbrous  and  freighted  with  infinitely 
more  misery  than  the  most  enrag^  deputy  could  have 
imagined  a  monarchy  like  that  represented  by  Louis 
was  capable  of  producing,  but  it  was  not  altogether 
without  reason.  The  interest  of  Europe  in  the  Revo- 
lution, as  we  might  easily  imagine,  was  intense. 
A  movement  which  had  begun  so  peacefully  and  with 
so  much  eclat,  and  yet  which  had  developed  so  rapidly 
into  more  than  disguised  opposition  to  royalty; 
a  nation  whose  king,  at  first  hailed  as  the  savior  of 
French  liberty,  had  become  practically  its  prisoner, 
and  in  which  the  wilder  elements  were  gaining  power, 
were  not  likely  to  be  passed  unnoticed  by  an  age 
trained  to  expect  revolutions.^  As  early  as  August, 
1 791,  the  king  of  Prussia  and  the  emperor  of  Austria 
Kad  concluded  a  treaty  at  Pilnitz,  and  issued  a  declara- 
tion to  the  effect  that  the  cause  of  Louis  XVI.  was 
conditionally  made  the  cause  of  all  the  monarchs  of 
Europe.      This    declaration    really  amounted   to    but 

^Reference  can  again  be  well  made  to  Burke's  Reflections  on  the  French 
Revolution. 


iimurOClTV 


nf  \smm 


190  The  French  Revolution 

little,  and  was  hardly  more  than  bluster,  yet  at  the 
same  time  it  was  never  forgotten  by  the  French,  and 
increased  both  their  suspicion  of  the  king  and  their 
dread  of  foreign  intervention  in  behalf  of  the  Old 
Regime.  Nevertheless,  after  Louis  had  accepted  the 
constitution,  the  attitude  of  the  European  powers  grew 
pacific.  The  king  had  apparently  adjusted  matters 
with  the  nation,  and  foreign  intervention  seemed  no 
longer  needed.  But  the  fatal — and,  as  we  know  now, 
well- justified — suspicion  of  the  royal  family  persisted. 
Another  source  of  danger  to  France  were  the  emi- 
grant nobles,  who  had  formed  two  great  military 
camps:  the  one  at  Coblentz,  composed  of  intriguing, 
inefficient  courtiers  under  the  Count  d'Artois,  and  the 
other  at  Worms,  under  the  Duke  of  Cond^,  composed 
of  earnest  and  determined  enemies  of  the  New 
Regime,  especially  as  it  concerned  the  church.  The 
latter  body  of  men  constituted  a  real  danger  to 
France,  but  the  Girondins  found  it  more  to  their  pur- 
pose to  deal  with  the  former.  The  Girondin  war 
policy  was  not  favored  by  the  Jacobins.  Robespierre 
opposed  it  in  three  strong  speeches,  on  the  ground 
that,  so  far  from  giving  a  democracy,  it  would 
strengthen  the  power  of  the  king  and  the  bourgeoisie — 
precisely  the  reason  for  which  Narbonne,  a  constitu- 
tionalist rather  than  Girondin  at  heart,  favored  the 
policy.  Marat,  with  the  foresight  that  characterized 
him  on  most  questions  where  his  peculiar  hatreds  were 
not  concerned,  argued  pertinently  in  his  paper:  "Who 
is  it  that  suffers  in  a  war?  Not  the  rich,  but  the  poor, 
not  the  high-born  officer,  but  the  poor  peasant." 
Danton  completely  vanquished  Brissot,  the  war  lea^der 


Foreign  War  and  End  of  the  Monarchy      191 

of  the  Girondins,  in  a  debate  at  the  Jacobin  Club. 
With  a  bankrupt  treasury,  a  disordered  state,  an  ill- 
disciplined  army,  untrustworthy  officers,  and  an  untried 
constitution,  there  was  everything  to  lose  and  little, 
except  what  was  already  inevitable,  to  gain.  But  the 
Girondins  and  Madame  Roland  would  not  so  see  the 
future,  and  the  subsequent  Reign  of  Terror,  which 
sprang  directly  from  the  panic  and  anarchy  caused 
by  foreign  invasion,  is  to  be  laid  at  the  doors  of  the 
hot-headed  young  men  who  precipitated  a  foreign  war 
as  a  measure  of  domestic  politics.^ 

The  grounds  for  war  were  not  difficult  to  discover. 
It  is  true  France  had  unexpired  treaties  with  Austria 
and  Prussia,  but  they  might  very  fairly  be  said  to  have 
been  strained  by  the  aid  given  the  emigres,  as  well  as 
by  the  declaration  of  Pilnitz.  It  also  appears  that  the 
Girondins  attempted  to  disregard  such  formalities. 
Brissot  declared  that  "the  sovereignty  of  the  people 
was  not  to  be  bound  by  the  treaties  of  tyrants." 
Fauchet,  another  of  the  war  party,  proposed  that  the 
Legislative  Assembly  should  make  alliances  with 
nations  like  England  and  America,  that  were  free,  and 
with  other  nations  as  soon  as  they  conquered  their 
freedom,  and  that  in  the  mean  time  these  other  nations 
should  be  treated  like  "good-natured  savages."^ 
But  such  methods  did  not  please  the  Assembly,  and 
the  Girondins  returned  to  the  emigres.     In  this  they 

^This  policy  of  a  foreign  war  is  by  no  means  peculiar  to  the  Girondins. 
Napoleon  III.  recurred  to  it  three  times,  and  Seward  proposed  it  to  Lincoln 
in  1861  as  the  means  of  preventing  the  Civil  War  in  America.  But  in  each 
of  these  cases  it  was  intended  to  allay,  not  intensify,  political  troubles. 

''The  political  vocabulary  of  the  eighteenth  century,  with  its  "tyrants," 
"slaves,"  "liberty."  "freemen,"  is  to  be  seen  in  most  modern  political  songs, 
including  those  of  America.  Compare,  for  instance,  "Hail  Columbia"  and 
"The  Star  Spangled  Banner"  with  the  "Marseillaise." 


192  The  French  Revolution 

were  unexpectedly  aided  by  the  king  himself,  for 
Louis  had  dismissed  his  incompetent  minister  of  war, 
and  in  his  place  had  appointed  Narbonne,  at  heart 
a  constitutionalist,  but,  as  has  been  said,  who  sided 
with  the  Girondins  for  a  reason  precisely  opposite 
to  theirs.  The  electors  of  Treves  and  Mayence  were 
protecting  the  imigris^  and  December  13th  the  Assem- 
bly declared  to  them,  through  the  king,  that  unless 
all  armaments  were  dispersed,  they  would  be  treated 
as  enemies.  January  i6th,  Louis  informed  the  Assem- 
bly that  the  emigres  had  been  expelled  from  the 
electorates.  It  was,  however,  but  a  shadowy  expul- 
sion, and  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  camps  remained. 
On  January  25th,  the  Assembly  requested  the  king 
to  inform  the  emperor  that  if  by  March  ist  he 
did  not  declare  his  intention  to  do  nothing  against 
France,  his  silence  would  be  regarded  as  a  declar- 
ation of  war.  Leopold  replied  in  a  letter  inspired 
by  Marie  Antoinette,  in  which  he  attacked  the 
Jacobins.  These  negotiations  were  momentarily  inter- 
rupted by  the  death  of  Leopold,  but  his  successor, 
the  young  Francis  IL,  neglected  the  demand  of 
the  Assembly  for  an  explanation  of  the  declaration 
of  Pilnitz,  and  undertook  to  champion  the  cause  of 
his  aunt,  Marie  Antoinette.  Through  his  minister 
he  therefore  wrote  France  demajiding  the  reestablish- 
ment  of  the  Old  Regime  on  the  basis  fixed  by  the 
royal  session  of  June  23,  1789.  He  further  demanded 
damages  for  those  of  his  nobles  who  had  suffered 
because  of  the  abrogation  of  feudal  dues  on 'the  estates 
they  held  in  Alsace.  At  the  same  time  Austrian 
troops    marched    toward    the   French    frontier.     Jlis 


Foreign  War  and  End  of  the  Monarchy      193 

letter  was  welcomed  in  the  Assembly  with  a  burst  of 
laughter,  and  after  receiving  it  there  was  only  one 
road  to  follow.  On  April  20,  1792,  Louis  appeared  in 
the  Assembly,  and  in  a  low  voice  proposed  that  war 
be  declared  upon  Austria.  On  the  same  day,  with 
a  minority  of  only  seven  votes,  war  was  declared — - 
a  war  not  for  conquest,  men  said,  but  for  the  defense 
and  the  spread  of  liberty.  And  thus  light-heartedly 
France  entered  upon  those  twenty-three  years  of 
struggle  that 'were  to  give  to  her  a  republic,  a  Reign 
of  Terror,  an  empire,  and  a  Bourbon  restoration; 
to  Europe  territorial  readjustment,  constitutions,  and 
public  debts;  but  to  both  the  imperishable  bless- 
ing of  political  equality,  and  in  the  end,  so  we  trust, 
political  liberty.* 

While  thus  the  Girondins  were  leading  the  nation 
into  war,  Louis  again  had  an  opportunity  to  place 
himself  at  the  head  of  a  nation  for  the  moment  united 
by  a  common  danger.  In  a  measure  he  did  this  by 
appointing  a  Girondin  ministry,  in  which  were 
Dumouriez  and  Roland ;  but  both  he  and  Marie  Antoi- 
nette were  fighting  for  time.  They  contemptuously 
rejected  the  aid  of  La  Fayette  and  Barnave,  and  as  we 
now  know  from  their  correspondence,  while  they  were 
apparently  leading  France  into  war  with  Austria  and 
the  emigres^  they  were  at  the  same  time  appealing  to 
both  for  help.  The  Assembly  knew  nothing  of  this 
fact,  though  the  air  was  full  of  attacks  upon  the  king 
and  "the  Austrian  woman";  but  reasons  for  suspect- 
ing the  king's  sincerity  were  also  given  by  his  use  of 
his  constitutional  power  of  veto. 

'The  formal  declaration  of  war  and  Condorcet's  Statement  of  Motives 
are  given  in  Thiers,  French  Revolution,  I,  238-240. 


194  The  French  Revolution 

Two  bills  had  been  passed  by  the  Assembly.  The 
first,  though  perhaps  necessary,  exhibited  the  growing 
hatred  of  the  church,  and  proposed  that  the  priests 
who  had  refused  to  take  the  oath  of  allegiance  to  the 
Assembly  must  either  take  it  within  a  week  or  leave 
their  canton  in  twenty-four  hours,  the  department  in 
thirty-six,  and  the  kingdom  in  one  month.  The  king 
vetoed  it.  The  other  bill  concerned  the  establish- 
ment of  a  camp  of  twenty  thousand  men  outside  of 
Paris,  as  a  reserve  for  the  protection  of  the  capital 
itself.     The  king  vetoed  this  bill  also. 

In  ordinary  times  the  king's  action  in  both  of  these 
cases  would  have  admitted  of  considerable  justifica- 
tion. The  bill  against  the  priests  was  certainly  severe,^ 
and  the  establishment  of  such  a  camp  might  well 
arouse  fears  lest  the  extreme  revolutionists  would 
use  soldiers  to  destroy  the  state.  But  the  time  in 
which  the  vetoes  were  made  was  unfortunate.  Not 
only  were  the  clergy  fomenting  rebellion,  but  war  had 
begun  disastrously  on  the  frontiers.  The  army  had 
been  divided  into  three  great  divisions,  and  each 
had  moved  against  the  enemy.  Belgium  was,  it  is 
true,  for  a  few  days  invaded,  but  generally  <he  first 
attempts  of  the  raw  French  troops  against  the  com- 
bined powers  were  singularly  unsuccessful;  the  sol- 
diers had  fled  almost  before  the  enemy  had  fired,  and 
one  division,  with  wild  shouts  of  "Treason!"  had 
murdered  its  commander.     Suspicion    is   endemic    in 

^Robespierre  opposed  the  bill.  In  this  as  in  other  matters  he  showed 
himself  no  mere  demagogue.  He  had  taken  no  interest  in  a  hysterical  cele- 
bration in  favor  of  certain  Swiss  soldiers  who  had  been  released  from  the 
galleys,  whither  they  had  been  sent  for  refusing  to  fire  upon  a  mob;  and  he 
had  refused  to  let  some  Jacobin  put  the  "red  cap"  of  liberty  upon  his  head, 
and  had  even  trampled  it  under  his  feet. 


Foreign  War  and  End  of  the  Monarchy      195 

France.  It  was  epidemic  in  1792.  It  was  openly 
charged  that  the  king  was  in  correspondence  with 
foreign  courts;  La  Fayette  began  to  be  the  object 
of  others'  than  Marat's  hatred ;  his  division  retreated, 
Marshal  Rochambeau  resigned ;  no  man  knew  whom 
he  could  trust.  These  vetoes  of  the  king  seemed  to 
indicate  that  he  was  expecting  aid  from  without 
and  was  setting  himself  in  opposition  to  the  will  of 
the  people.  And  this  suspicion  was  increased  by 
the  subsequent  ill-advised,  if  intelligible,  action  of 
Louis  in  dismissing  Roland^  and  two  other  Girondin 
ministers,  who  had  been  forced  upon  him  by  the 
Assembly.  Dumouriez,  an  exceedingly  able  soldier, 
accepted  the  position  of  minister  of  war,  but  with 
condition  that  the  king  should  sign  the  two  bills. 
The  king  promised  to  sign  them.  Three  days  later 
Dumouriez  had  taken  office,  and  presented  the  bills; 
but  the  king  refused  to  keep  his  word,  and  Dumou- 
riez, righteously  indignant,  resigned.  The  situation  of 
France  thus  was  critical.  Its  arms  had  been  defeated; 
its  enemies  were  exultant;  its  internal  affairs  were  in 
disorder;  its  king  was  evidently  expecting  aid  from 
the  armies  on  the  frontiers;  its  queen  was  universally 
believed  to  be  a  traitor.^ 

Under  these  circumstances,  some  form  of  emphatic 
protest  seemed  indispensable.  On  June  20th  a  demon- 
stration was  made  which  was  evidently  intended  to 
terrify  the  king  into  signing  the  bill  against  the  priests 

^Madame  Roland  had  written  for  her  husband  a  letter  to  the  king  in 
which  she  had  outlined  the  royal  policy  frankly,  if  not  imperiously. 

'^That  these  suspicions  were  not  gratuitous  appears  from  the  fact  that 
in  March,  1792,  Marie  Antoinette  forwarded  to  the  Austrian  court  the  pro- 
posed plan  of  campaign.  It  was  a  piece  of  supreme  treachery,  and  under 
any  law  would  be  liable  to  the  death  sentence. 


196  The  French  Revolution 

and  that  in  favor  of  the  camp  of  reserves.  It  was 
planned  and  managed  by  subordinate  popular  leaders, 
though  opposed  by  Robespierre  and  Danton.  It  was 
peaceful,  and  on  the  whole,  were  it  not  for  what 
it  portended,  half-ludicrous.  The  original  plan  of 
Santerre  and  Potion,  the  mayor  of  Paris,  seems  to 
have  been  for  a  huge  delegation  to  carry  a  petition 
to  the  Assembly,  then  to  plant  a  liberty  tree  in  honor 
of  the  Oath  of  the  Tennis  Court,  and  then  to  go  home. 
Events  proceeded  at  first  without  great  disorder.  The 
crowd  from  the  poorest  wards  marched  through  the 
Assembly  hall,  under  the  inspiring  banners  of  a  pair 
of  short  breeches  on  a  pole,  and  a  calf's  heart,  labeled 
"The  heart  of  an  aristocrat,"  on  a  pike.  Then  in  some 
way  not  understood  it  was  allowed  to  enter  the  Palace 
of  the  Tuileries.  It  marched  through  the  royal  apart- 
ments howling  "Down  with  Monsieur  Veto!  Monsieur 
Veto  to  the  devil!"  The  king  stood  in  a  window 
recess,  and  put  the  "red  cap"  on  his  head;  the  queen 
barricaded  herself  and  the  dauphin  behind  a  table  and 
fat  Santerre,  the  dauphin  also  wearing  a  red  liberty 
cap.  The  crowd  was  rude,  but  it  was  good-natured, 
offering  Louis  a  drink  from  a  black  bottle,  huzzaing 
for  the  dauphin,  and  finally  for  the  king.  It  was  sim- 
ply a  threat.  But  what  it  might  have  become  but  for 
the  stolid  courage  of  Louis  and  the  dignity  of  the 
queen  it  is  not  hard  to  guess.  One  gets  a  new  respect 
for  the  personal  bearing  of  both  Louis  and  Marie 
Antoinette  from  this  day  on;  neither  of  them  was 
lacking  a  whit  in  courage.  When  Louis  was  asked  by 
a  grenadier  if  he  was  afraid,  he  replied:  "Afraid! 
Certainly   not;  put   your  hand   on   my  heart  and  feel 


Foreign  War  and  End  of  the  Monarchy     197 

it  beat."  The  queen,  addressed  by  one  of  the  women 
who  hung  on  the  outskirts  of  the  crowd,  answered  so 
kindly  and  so  majestically  that  the  woman  burst  into 
tears.  Indeed  the  whole  affair  produced  a  short-lived 
reaction  in  favor  of  the  king.  The  queen's  treachery 
was  of  course  unknown,  and  Louis,  though  himself 
in  correspondence  with  the  enemy,  was  loud  in  his 
protestations  of  his  devotion  to  the  Constitution. 
Petion,  the  mayor  of  the  city  of  Paris,  who  had  cer- 
tainly been  concerned  in  the  affair  and  had  not  taken 
any  steps  to  preserve  order,  was  suspended  from  office, 
and  La  Fayette  came  hurrying  on  from  the  frontier 
to  demand  justice  against  the  participants.  It  almost 
seems  as  if  he  might  have  headed  a  bourgeois  army 
against  the  Jacobins.  There  was  good  prospect  of 
success,  but  both  Louis  and  the  queen  refused  to  be 
saved  by  him  or  any  other  liberal,  and  he  returned 
to  his  army  after  having  been  attacked  by  the  Giron- 
dins  for  having  left  it  without  leave. 

It  was  impossible  that  any  royalist  reaction  could 
be  more  than  a  sort  of  eddy  in  the  great  flood  of  the 
revolutionary  stream.  The  Girondins  through  Ver- 
gniaud  attacked  Louis  both  as  ungenerous  and  as  a 
cause  of  the  war.  The  leaders  of  the  people,  and 
the  people  themselves,  were  so  thoroughly  imbued 
with  the  teachings  of  Rousseau  that  nothing  could 
satisfy  them  except  the  end  of  the  monarchy.  A  young 
deputy  expressed  this  feeling  well  on  June  20th.  After 
the  crowd  had  left  the  palace  the  unhappy  king  and 
queen  fell  into  each  other's  arms.  All  present  were 
deeply  moved — this  young  deputy  to  tears.  But  he 
explained  this  weakness:  "I  weep,  madame,"  he  said 


198  The  French  Revolution 

to  the  queen,  **for  the  misfortunes  of  a  beautiful  and 
sensitive  woman,  and  for  the  sufferings  of  a  mother; 
I  do  not  weep  for  the  queen.  I  hate  queens  and  kings; 
to  hate  them  is  my  religion."  It  was  indeed  about  all 
the  religion  many  Frenchmen  had.' 

On  July  nth  the  Assembly  declared  that  *'the  coun- 
try was  in  danger,"  and  called  for  eighty-five  thousand 
volunteers.  The  action  was  not  without  cause.  In 
the  coalition  against  France  were  Prussia,  since  the 
days  of  Frederick  the  Great  recognized  as  the  greatest 
military  force  in  Europe,  and  Austria,  nearly  the  equal 
of  Prussia.  There  is  little  wonder,  therefore,  that 
France,  be  it  never  so  enthusiastic  for  liberty,  should 
have  regarded  with  apprenhesion  this  union  of  its  old 
enemies.  Reverses,  with  suspicion  of  widespread 
treason,  it  will  be  remembered,  had  marked  the  first 
efforts  of  the  revolutionary  armies.  The  suspicion 
of  treachery  on  the  part  of  the  government  had 
increased,  and  with  it  the  fear  of  coming  retribution. 

To  France,  thus  pendulating  between  a  delirious 
dream  of  popular  sovereignty  and  the  fear  of  punish- 
ment at  the  hands  of  an  invading  army,  came  suddenly 
the  declaration  of  the  Duke  of  Brunswick,  the  comman- 
der of  the  allied  forces.  Had  Austria  and  Prussia 
deliberately  planned  to  aid  the  Girondinsand  Jacobins 
in  destroying  the  French  monarchy,  they  could  have 
chosen  nothing  more  suited  to  that  end  than  this 
declaration  which,  at  the  suggestion  of  Marie  Antoi- 
nette, the  Duke  of  Brunswick  published  in  the  summer 
of  1792.     In  this  manifesto   Brunswick  declared  that 


'In  addition  to  the  (general  references  given  above,  on  June  20,  1792,  see 
Mortimer-Ternaux,  Hisioire  de  la  Terreur,  1,  129-223. 


i 


Foreign  War  and  End  of  the  Monarchy      199 

the  allies  were  entering  France  to  deliver  Louis  from 
captivity;  that  all  members  of  the  National  Guard 
found  fighting  against  the  invaders  would  be  banished 
as  rebels;  and  further  declared  that  "if  the  Tuileries 
were  forced  or  insulted,  or  the  least  violence  offered 
to  the  king  and  the  queen  or  the  royal  family,  and  if 
provision  were  not  made  at  once  for  their  safety  and 
liberty,  the  allied  powers  would  inflict  a  memorable 
vengeance  by  delivering  up  the  city  of  Paris  to  mili- 
tary execution  and  total  annihilation."  With  this 
proclamation  spread  broadcast  before  him,  Brunswick 
moved  upon  France.  It  was  a  challenge  as  well  as 
a  threat  to  both  bourgeoisie  and  Jacobins,  and  all 
France  accepted  the  challenge  and  answered  the 
threat.  And  the  answer  was  the  destruction  of  the 
monarchy. 

It  is  impossible  to  tell  just  when  the  plan  was 
formed  that  led  to  the  events  of  the  loth  of  August, 
but  it  could  not  have  been  long  after  June  20th.  The 
hope  of  bringing  about  the  abdication  of  Louis  and 
the  peaceful  or  parliamentary  end  of  the  monarchy 
was  abandoned.  In  such  a  supreme  affair,  however, 
the  popular  leaders  appear  to  have  been  unwilling 
to  trust  the  rabble  of  Paris.  They  had  accordingly 
turned  to  the  departments,  and  the  Girondin  Barba- 
roux,  one  of  Madame  Roland's  coterie,  summoned 
a  band  of  men  from  Marseilles.  These  men  of  Mar- 
seilles are  commonly  spoken  of  as  a  band  o*f  ruffians. 
Recent  historians,  however,  have  shown  that  the 
band  was  composed  of  picked  men  from  the  Na- 
tional Guards  of  Marseilles  who  "knew  how  to  die." 
On  the  2d  of  July  they  left  Marseilles  five  hundred 


aoo  The  French  Revolution 

aid  thirteen  strong,  with  two  cannon.  Their  coming 
was  expected,  and  even  the  Girondins  shrank  from 
the  violence  expected  from  their  arrival.  Vergniaud 
wrote  a  letter  to  Louis  urging  rational  action.  Madame 
de  Stael  endeavored  to  persuade  the  royal  family  to 
escape  through  her  aid.  Her  offer  was  coldly  declined. 
The  hopes  of  king  and  queen  were  now  built  on  for- 
eign invasion.  On  July  30th  the  Marseillais  came 
into  Paris,  singing  the  hymn  that  has  been  the  paean 
of  revolutions,  the  Marseillaise,  while  all  France, 
taught  the  song  by  their  march  across  the  country, 
jcined  in  the  chorus,  "Rather  death  than  slavery." 
Their  arrival  was  felt  to  be  the  beginning  of  the  cul- 
mination of  a  great  plot  against  the  king.  The 
Assembly,  even  before  their  arrival,  had  authorized 
a  committee  to  draw  up  a  list  of  acts  that  might  lead 
to  dethronement.  The  Jacobin  Club  had  been  inde- 
fatigable in  organizing  the  different  sections  of  Paria. 
Santerre  had  promised  to  lead  out  again  the  wild  meti 
of  Faubourg  San  Antoine.  The  National  Guard  was 
carefully  sifted,  and  those  who  could  not  be  trusted 
to  join  an  uprising  were  replaced  by  members  of  the 
mob.  A  secret  organization,  of  which  Santerre,  Dan- 
ton,  and  Camille  Desmoulins  were  leaders,  took  charge 
of  all  the  movements.  An  uprising  was  planned  for 
July  26th,  and  then  for  July  30th,  but  both  miscarried. 
All  these  facts  were  known  to  every  man  in  Paris,  and 
the  king's  friends  made  every  effort  to  persuade  him 
to  escape,  but  the  queen  would  have  nothing  to  do 
with  them  because  they  had  favored  the  Constitution. 
The  king  knew  that  on  August  9th  the  tocsin  would  be 
rung,  and   that  on   the   next  day  his  palace  would  be 


Foreign  War  and  End  of  the  Monarchy     201 

attacked.  He  therefore  summoned  his  ministers  and 
Petion,  the  mayor  of  Paris,  and  endeavored  to  gain 
from  them  protection.  Petion  declared,  with  a  smile, 
that  there  was  no  need  of  alarm,  that  the  rising  would 
all  end  in  smoke,  and  went  home.  Mandat,  leader  of 
the  troops  of  the  palace,  was  the  only  man  who  seems 
to  have  taken  any  measures  to  protect  the  king.  His 
chief  reliance  was  on  the  Swiss  guards,  who,  on  the  8th 
of  August,  to  the  number  of  eight  hundred,  had  been 
ordered  to  come  to  the  Tuileries.  In  addition,  there 
were  perhaps  two  hundred  personal  friends  of  the 
king  in  the  palace,  as  well  as  several  battalions  of  the 
National  Guard  —  altogether  perhaps  two  thousand 
men,  though,  as  it  proved,  not  more  than  one  thou- 
sand could  be  counted  upon  to  defend  the  king. 
Mandat  had  requested  the  Assembly  to  issue  ball  car- 
tridges for  his  troops,  but  his  order  was  refused.  He 
thereupon  made  the  best  use  he  could  of  the  resources 
at  hand,  and  stationed  his  troops  at  strategic  points 
about  and  in  the  Tuileries.  Thus  the  two  sides,  on 
the  9th  of  August,  were  ready  for  the  struggle. 

The  plan  of  the  secret  committee  seems  to  have 
been  first  to  involve  the  defenders  of  the  king,  and  so 
the  king,  in  a  struggle  with  the  mob,  which  should 
give  countenance  to  a  charge  that  the  king  was  false 
to  his  country,  and  then,  after  he  had  been  taken  pris- 
oner by  the  storming  of  the  palace,  to  take  the  second 
step  of -deposition  by  the  Assembly  itself.  Westerman 
was  to  have  charge  of  the  military  operations,  Danton 
of  the  legislative.  Only  one  thing  seems  to  have 
excited  the  anxieties  of  the  leaders  of  the  uprising — 
the  precautions  taken  by  Mandat  and  his  evident  inten- 


202  The  French  Revolution 

tion  to  offer  serious  resistance.  They  therefore 
resolved  to  remove  such  an  efficient  officer.  Mandat 
was  summoned  to  the  city  hall;  there,  after  being 
questioned  closely  as  to  his  plans,  he  was  dismissed ; 
but  as  he  was  returning  to  the  palace  he  was  seized, 
taken  before  the  secret  organization  having  in  charge 
the  uprising,  and  on  his  refusal  to  sign  an  order  for 
the  Swiss  to  return  to  their  barracks,  he  was  sus- 
pended from  his  command,  and  Santerre  appointed  as 
his  temporary  successor.  As  he  was  going  down  the 
steps  of  the  city  hall,  a  crowd  of  ruffians  closed  upon 
him  and  killed  him.  Whether  or  not  this  murder  was 
a  part  of  the  original  plan  it  is  hard  to  decide.  It  cer- 
tainly benefited  the  leaders  of  the  insurrection,  for 
the  force  stationed  for  the  defense  of  the  king  was 
left  without  a  recognized  commander. 

Early  in  the  morning  the  crowd  began  to  gather 
about  the  Tuileries.  Although  it  was  not  the  insur- 
rectionary army,  the  king  was  evidently  in  danger. 
The  ministers  begged  him  to  go  to  the  Assembly  for 
protection.  Between  eight  and  nine  in  the  morning 
Louis  yielded  an  uncertain  assent,  and  accompanied 
by  his  wife,  the  royal  family,  the  ministers,  and  a  few 
soldiers,  walked  from  the  Tuileries  to  the  Assembly 
hall,  where  he  was  received  decently  by  the  deputies 
and  conducted  to  a  room  or  reporter's  box,  twelve 
feet  square,  just  behind  the  president's  seat.  There 
he  and  his  companions  remained  for  more  than  thirty 
hours.  Up  to  the  time  of  the  departure  of  the  king 
there  seems  to  have  been  little  or  no  bloodshed,  and 
it  is  possible  that  the  events  of  the  loth  of  August 
might  have  passed  off  as  peacefully  as  those  of  tlie 


Foreign  War  and  End  of  the  Monarchy     203 

20th  of  June.  The  crowd  began  to  disperse,  when 
through  some  mistake  they  were  allowed  to  pass  through 
the  court  of  the  palace.  The  Marseillais  rushed  up 
the  stairway  of  the  palace,  where  the  Swiss  were 
drawn  in  line.  For  a  moment  it  seemed  as  if  the 
Swiss  would  yield  to  the  appeals  of  Westerman,  who 
spoke  German,  and  fraternize  with  the  Revolutionists, 
but  their  officers  brought  them  back  to  their  duty. 
Almost  at  that  moment  a  shot  was  fired ;  it  was  imme- 
diately followed  by  a  volley  from  the  Swiss  stationed 
in  the  windows  of  the  palace,  and  by  a  charge  of  the 
Swiss  down  the  staircase  that  sent  the  mob  flying, 
cleared  the  court,  and  captured  the  guns  of  the  Mar- 
seillais. The  firing  then  became  general,  and  the 
Swiss,  though  having  no  commander,  being  well 
officered  and  protected  by  the  walls  of  the  palace,  were 
doing  well.  Napoleon  Bonaparte,  then  an  unknown 
officer  in  the  artillery,  was  watching  the  mel^e  from 
the  other  side  of  the  Seine,  and  was  of  the  opinion 
that  had  the  Swiss  been  properly  led  they  would  have 
completely  routed  their  assailants.  Three  years  later 
he  demonstrated  the  truth  of  his  judgment  by  putting 
a  mob  to  flight  almost  on  the  same  ground.  But  just 
at  this  critical  juncture  the  king,  hearing  the  musketry, 
sent  an  order  for  the  Swiss  to  stop  firing  and  dis- 
patched it  by  a  messenger.  This  messenger  neglected 
to  deliver  the  order  for  nearly  three-quarters  of  an 
hour,  and  in  the  mean  time  a  hundred  of  the  insurgents 
had  been  killed  or  wounded.  On  the  reception  of  the 
king's  order  a  portion  of  the  Swiss  immediately 
stopped  firing,  fell  into  line,  and  began  to  retreat  from 
the  Tuileries  to  the  Assembly.     There  they  were  dis- 


204  The  French  Revolution 

armed  and  placed  for  safety  in  a  neighboring  church. 
But  there  were  other  Swiss  soldiers  in  the  halls  and 
corridors  of  the  palace,  who  had  not  heard  the  order 
of  the  king  to  stop  firing,  and  kept  up  the  fighting. 
When  they  found  themselves  deserted  by  their  com- 
panions, they  began  to  retreat,  only  to  find  themselves 
hemmed  in  by  their  enemies,  who  shot  them  down. 
At  last  the  wretched  men  formed  a  square  about  the 
statue  of  Louis  XV.,  and  there  perished  almost  to 
a  man.  These  Swiss  were  mercenaries,  like  the  Hes- 
sians in  the  American  Revolution,  but  they  were  faith- 
ful to  their  service,  and  no  one  of  the  hundreds  of 
travelers  who  look  up  at  the  noble  lion  of  Thorwald- 
sen  at  Lucerne  but  shares  with  Switzerland  the 
admiration  that  erected  the  memorial. 

While  thus  the  Swiss  were  being  shot  down,  an 
indiscriminate  slaughter  was  begun  in  the  palace,  not 
probably  by  the  organized  insurrectionists,  but  by  that 
bloodthirsty  rabble  that  always  hangs  about  a  riot.  The 
very  cooks  and  servants  were  murdered,  and  for  hours 
the  palace  was  sacked  and  the  royal  stables  burned.* 

From  this  time  began  the  short  but  terrible  reign 
of  the  Revolutionary  Commune  of  Paris.  Even  while 
the  Swiss  were  being  massacred  this  Commune 
appeared  in  the  Assembly  and  ordered  the  few  mem- 
bers of  that  terrified  body  who  were  present  to 
dethrone  the  king.  In  answer  to  their  demand,  the 
Assembly,  in  his  very  presence,  suspended  Louis,'  and 

^Ready  wit  sometimes  saved  one's  life,  as  in  the  case  of  the  royal  physi- 
cian, who  faced  his  would-be  murderers,  told  them  he  was  not  afraid  of 
them,  and  so  escaped.  The  ladies  of  the  court  were  also  saved  by  some 
one's  shouting,  "Spare  the  women,  let  us  not  dishonor  the  nation." 

'According  to  Madame  Campan,  Louis  ate  so  imperturbably  and  heartily 
while  at  the  Assembly,  that  the  queen  felt  obliged  to  apologize  for  himl        ^ 


Foreign  War  and  End  of  Monarchy      205 

three  days  later,  in  accordance  with  the  constitutional 
provision,  summoned  a  Convention  to  draw  up  a  new 
constitution,  Vergniaud,  chief  orator  of  the  Gironde, 
making  the  motion.  French  monarchy  had  followed 
French  feudalism.' 

So  far  had  the  Revolution  under  the  guidance  of  its 
new  leaders  proceeded.  In  comparison  with  Danton, 
Camille  Desmoulins,  and  the  leaders  of  the  insurrec- 
tionary Commune  of  Paris,  the  leaders  of  the  Constitu- 
ent Assembly  were  reactionists.  They  had  attempted 
simply  the  abolition  of  privilege;  the  Legislative 
Assembly,  under  the  guidance  of  the  Girondins,  had 
sought  through  war  the  end  of  monarchy.  At  last  the 
wishes  of  the  Girondins  were  realized — a  republic  was 
to  be  established.  But  far  enough  was  this  repiiblic 
from  that  of  which  they  had  dreamed,  and  farther  still 
from  their  planning  was  to  be  its  future.^ 

^Though  neither  permanently,  for  there  was  to  be  a  Restoration,  nor 
formally.  No  revolutionary  movement  was  more  regardful  of  the  letter  of  a 
constitution.  The  king  was  not  dethroned,  but  suspended.  An  actual 
change  in  the  Constitution,  such  as  the  establishment  of  a  republic  would 
have  been,  to  be  legal  needed  the  work  of  a  Convention.  The  vote  of  the 
Convention,  September  21,  1792,  declaring  France  a  republic,  was  strictly 
constitutional,  and  marks  the  formal  end  of  the  reign  of  Louis  XVI. 

*0n  August  10,  1792,  see,  in  addition  to  general  references  given  above, 
Mortimer-Ternaux,  Histoire  de  la  Terreur,  II,  213-269;  Wallon,  La  Terreur, 
1.  15-31;  Von  Sybel,  French  Revolution,  I,  498-531;  Carlyle,  French  Revolu- 
lion,U,  bk.  vi.  The  material  is  given  in  great  detail  in  Buchez  et  Roux, 
//is/.  Pari.  The  best  contemporary  account  of  the  fight  at  the  Tuileries  is 
that  of  Baron  de  Durler,  one  of  the  officers  in  command  of  the  Swiss.  It  is 
published  by  Stephens,  English  //istorical  Review,  II,  350  (April,  1887). 
The  statement  of  some  writers  that  Louis  Te/rt?/^  the  order  to  stop  firing  is  not 
confirmed  by  Durler,  but  he  speaks  of  a  written  order  signed  by  Louis  for 
the  Swiss  (apparently  those  who  had  retired  to  the  Assembly)  to  lay  down 
their  arras.  Durler  himself  escaped  to  England  through  the  aid  of  a  German 
deputy  in  the  Assembly. 

Perhaps  as  good  an  expression  as  any  of  the  spirit  of  the  Parisian  masses 
^on  the  loth  of  August,  1792,  is  to  be  found  in  the  Carmagnole,  a  revolutionary 
\song  and  dance,  some  of  the  numerous  verses  of  which  are  here  given: 

CARMAGNOLE. 
Madame  Veto  avait  promis, 
Madame  Veto  avait  promis, 
De  faire  €gorger  tout  Paris, 
De  faire  egorger  tout  Paris. 


2o6  The  French  Revolution 


Mais  le  coup  a  man(iu6, 
Grice  h  nos  canonniersi 
Dansons  la  Carmagnole 
Vive  le  son,  vive  le  son! 
Dansons  la  Carmagnole 
Vive  le  son  du  canon  1 

Monsieur  Veto  avait  promis  {its) 
D'etre  fidele  a  sa  patrie  (dis); 
Mais  il  y  a  manqu6. 
Ne  faisons  plus  quarti6. 
Dansons  la  Carmagnole,  etc. 

Antoinette  avait  resolu  (/>ts) 

De  nous  fair'  tomber  sur  Ic  cu  (dis); 

Mais  son  coup  a  manqu^; 

Elle  a  le  nez  cass6. 

Dansons  la  Carmagnole,  etc. 

Les  Suisses  avaient  promis  (fits) 
Qu'ils  feraient  feu  sur  nos  amis  (dis) 
Mais,  comme  ils  ont  saute, 
Comme  ils  ont  tous  dansdl 
Dansons  la  Carmagnole,  etc. 

Le  patriote  a  pour  amis  (.dis) 
Tous  les  bonnes  gens  du  pays  (dis) 
Mais  ils  se  soutiendront 
Tous  au  son  du  canon. 
Dansons  la  Carmagnole,  etc. 

L'aristocrate  a  pour  amis  (dis) 
Tous  les  royalist's  a  Paris  (dis) 
lis  vous  les  soutiendront 
Tout  comm'  de  vrais  poltrons 
Dansons  la  Carmagnole,  etc. 


PART   IV 

THE    REPUBLIC 


CHAPTER    XV 

THE   JACOBIN    CONQUEST 

I.  The  Crisis  of  August  and  September,  1792.  II.  The  Sep- 
tember Massacres:  i.  In  Paris;  2.  In  the  Departments. 
III.  The  Success  of  French  Arms.  IV.  The  Convention: 
I.  Declaration  of  the  Republic;  2.  The  Girondins  and 
the  Mountain.  V.  Struggle  between  the  Girondins  and 
the  Mountain:  i.  The  Attack  of  the  Girondins;  2.  The 
Counter-Attack  of  the  Mountain;  3.  The  Execution  of 
Louis  XVI.  VI.  Final  Struggle  between  the  Two  Parties: 
I.  The  New  Crisis;  2.  The  Coup  d'Etat  of  June  2,  1793. 

The  suspension  of  the  king  and  the  call  for  the  Con- 
vention naturally  paralyzed  all  existing  government. 
To  meet  the  need  of  some  executive  head,  the  Assem- 
bly, on  August  loth,  created  a  Provisional  Executive 
Council,  composed  of  ministers  whom  it  proceeded  to 
elect.  In  this  new  Council,  the  forerunner  of  the 
great  Committee  of  Public  Safety,  Roland  was  given 
the  portfolio  of  the  Interior,  Servan  of  War,  and  Dan- 
ton  of  Justice.^  But  the  real  ruler  of  France  between 
the  suspension  of  Louis  and  the  declaration  of  the 
republic  was  the  insurrectionary  Commune,   or  town 

•In  general,  see  Von  Sybel,  French  Revolution,  II,  47-111,  260-296,  III, 
54-83;  Stephens,  French  Revolution,  II,  chs.  5-8;  Taine,  French  Revolution, 
bk.  IV,  chs.  II,  12;  Carlyle,  French  Revolution,  III,  bks.  i-iii. 

'Aulard,  Recueil  des  Actes  du  Comite  de  Salui  pttblie,  1, 1-4. 
207 


2o8  The  French  Revolution 

council  of  Paris.  It  was  composed  of  men  chosen 
without  legal  warrant  from  twenty-eight  sections  or 
wards  of  Paris,  who  had  forced  the  original  Commune 
to  resign,  and  now  ruled  as  the  representatives  of  the 
lower  classes  and  of  the  Jacobin  minority.  Its  mem- 
bers were  elected  from  the  most  radical  and  desperate 
of  the  popular  leaders,  and  included  Marat,  Collot 
d'Herbois,  and  Billaud-Varennes.  Their  organization 
may  be  regarded  as  the  result  of  the  attempt  of  the 
masses  of  Paris  to  take  the  control  of  the  Revolution 
away  from  the  Girondins,  the  representatives  of  the 
departments.^ 

The  new  governors  found  the  situation  of  France 
desperate.  August  i8th,  La  Fayette,  who  had 
attempted  and  failed  to  win  over  his  army  to  the  cause 
of  the  imprisoned  king,  fled  over  the  border  to  the 
Austrians,  by  whom  he  was  imprisoned  for  five  years. 
The  peasants  of  the  Vendue,  already  goaded  into  mad- 
ness by  the  laws  against  their  beloved  non-juring 
priests,^  revolted,  with  the  war-cry,  '*Long  live  the 
king!  Death  to  the  Parisians!"  The  Sardinians 
crossed  the  southeastern  frontier.  The  advancing 
Prussian  army  took  Longwy;  then  Verdun  fell,  its 
commandant  in  despair  blowing  out  his  brains;  and 
by  the  end  of  August  the  Duke  of  Brunswick  was 
only  three  days'  march  from  the  capital.  But  Bruns- 
wick was  only  one  of  the  enemies  the  popular 
leaders  feared.  The  armies  in  the  field,  under  the 
influence   of    the    commissioners    sent   them   by   the 


I 


*The  complete  reorganization  of  the  military  force  of  Paris  in  the  interests 
of  the  workingraen  rather  than  the  property-holding  classes  was  a  part  of 
the  same  program  as  the  organization  oi  the  Commune. 


•That  is,  those  priests  who  refused  to  take  the  oath  to  support  the  n^w 
Constitution  with  its  ecclesiastical  provisions. 


The  Jacobin  Conquest  209 

Assembly,  might  still  confront  him.  The  Jacobins 
knew  very  well  that  Paris  was  full  of  men  and 
women  who  sympathized  with  Louis,  and  who  hoped 
for  the  speedy  arrival  of  the  Prussian  army.  The 
Assembly  endeavored  to  provide  against  this  danger. 
On  the  17th  of  August,  upon  motion  by  Robespierre, 
the  Assembly  established  a  tribunal  to  try  the  con- 
spirators of  the  loth  of  August,  meaning  thereby  the 
Swiss  and  the  royalists  who  had  fired  upon  the  insur- 
rectionary army.  On  the  27th  it  called  upon  Paris  for 
an  army  of  thirty  thousand  men  to  protect  the  capital. 
On  the  28th,  upon  motion  of  Danton,  a  general  search 
for  arms  and  suspects  through  the  city  was  ordered  to 
be  conducted  by  the  Commune.  That  body  chose 
Marat  chairman  of  the  committee  to  which  the  matter 
was  referred,  and  the  next  few  days  he  was  the  most 
important  man  in  Paris.  On  the  30th  the  gates  of  the 
city  were  closed,  and  no  man  was  allowed  to  go  out 
or  come  in;  the  streets  were  illuminated,  and  bodies 
of  the  National  Guards  entered  every  house  and 
searched  it  from  top  to  bottom.  "Patrols  of  sixty 
pikemen  were  in  every  street.  The  nocturnal  tumult 
of  so  many  armed  men,  the  incessant  knocks  to  make 
people  open  their  doors,  the  crash  of  those  that  were 
burst  off  their  hinges,  and  the  continual  uproar  and 
reveling  which  took  place  throughout  the  night  in  all 
the  public-houses,  formed  a  picture  which  will  never  be 
effaced  from  my  memory. ' '  So  wrote  Peltier,  of  his  own 
knowledge.  Few  arms  were  found,  but  three  thousand 
persons  suspected  of  sympathizing  with  the  invaders 
and  the  king  were  arrested  and  shut  up  in  the  prisons, 
and   as   they  were  not  large  enough  to  contain  them 


2IO  The  French  Revolution 

all,  in  convents.  The  Assembly,  to  its  credit  be  it  said, 
attempted  to  restrain  the  actions  of  this  over-zealous 
insurrectionary  Commune,  and  even  ordered  it  to  dis- 
solve. Robespierre,  always  the  enemy  of  anything 
approaching  anarchy,  advised  the  Commune  to  obey. 
But  in  the  face  of  both  vote  and  advice,  on  the  2d  of 
September  the  Commune  resolved  that  instead  of 
dissolving  it  would  increase  its  numbers  to  298,  and 
carry  out  its  hideous  policy.  On  the  same  day, 
while  Danton  was  in  the  Assembly,  the  tocsin  began 
ringing.  Danton  sprang  to  his  feet.  "That  tocsin 
sounds,"  he  shouted,  "the  charge  upon  the  enemies 
of  France.  Conquer  them !  Courage !  courage !  for- 
ever courage!  and  France  is  saved!"  The  Assembly 
rang  with  applause,  and  decreed  that  every  one  who 
was  unable  to  march  to  the  frontier  himself  should 
give  up  his  weapons  to  some  one  who  could,  or  be 
forever  infamous.  But  whether  or  not  Danton  knew 
it,^  the  tocsin  sounded  for  two  purposes,  both  to  sum- 
mon volunteers  to  the  Champs  de  Mars  and  to  summon 
murderers  to  the  prisons.  "Can  we  go  away  to  the  war 
and  leave  three  thousand  prisoners  behind  us  in  Paris 
who  may  break  out  and  destroy  our  wives  and  children?" 
demanded  the  brutal,  panic-stricken  enthusiasts  for 
liberty.  And  under  the  inspiration  of  Marat  the  Com- 
mune undertook  to  see  that  this  danger  was  removed. 
It  is  noteworthy  that  the  first  act  of  the  approach- 
ing tragedy  expressed  the  popular  hatred  of  the  church. 
Several  carriage-loads  of  priests  who  would  not  take 
the  civic  oath  were  being  carried  from  the  Hotel  de 

'For  an  able  defense  of  Danton  in  this  matter,  see  Beesley,  Life  of  Dan- 
ton. z)^.  12;  the  articles  by  Robinet  in  Rev.  de  Rev.  franQaise,  Nov.,  1882, 
to  July,  1883:  and  by  Dubort,  ibid,  Aug.-Dec,  1880.  See  also  Bougeart, 
Dant0n,  ana  Groulund,  Ca  Ira,  passim. 


The  Jacobin  Conquest  an 

Ville  to  the  Abbaye,  a  convent  that  was  for  the  time 
used  as  a  prison.  Hardly  had  they  arrived  when  they 
were  dragged  from  the  carriages  and  slaughtered. 
One  only  escaped,  the  Abbe  Sicard,  noted  for  his  work 
among  the  deaf  and  dumb.  The  deed  was  a  signal 
for  similar  massacres,  but  in  the  other  prisons  there 
was  more  evidence  of  premeditation. 

Any  visitor  to  Paris  may  walk  from  the  quiet  gal- 
lery of  the  Luxembourg  along  the  Rue  de  Vaurigard 
to  the  Church  of  the  Carmellites.  The  guide  will 
lead  him  to  the  rear  of  the  church,  and  there  show 
him  two  rooms  and  a  narrow  entry — rude,  peaceful, 
the  last  place  in  which  to  look  for  reminders  of  mas- 
sacre. Yet  on  the  second  day  of  September,  1792, 
one  of  the  rooms  was  filled  with  priests;  in  the  other 
sat  an  irregular  tribunal,  before  which  one  after  another 
of  these  priests  was  brought,  passed  a  moment  of  exam- 
ination, and  then — most  of  them — passed  out  through 
the  entry  into  the  arms  of  butchers,  hired  at  six  francs 
a  day.  There  are  few  more  terrible  days  in  history 
than  the  first  four  days  of  September,  1792,  when 
France  was  without  a  constitutional  government.  In 
Paris  alone  1,100  persons  of  all  ranks  were  butchered, 
among  them  250  priests,  three  bishops  or  archbishops, 
one  former  minister  of  Louis, ^  and  the  Princess  Lam- 
balle,  the  intimate  friend  of  Marie  Antoinette,  whose 
loyalty  had  brought  her  from  safety  in  England  to 
death  and  nameless  mutilation.^ 

'Montmorin,  the  friend  of  Mirabeau.  These  figures  of  Stephens,  II,  146, 
are  given  differently  by  various  authorities.  Mortimer-Ternaux,  La  Terreur, 
gives  the  total  as  1,368. 

"The  murderers  among  other  things  dragged  her  headless  body  through 
the  streets,  and  stuck  her  head  upon  a  pike.  Then  they  tried  to  hold  it  up 
before  the  window  of  the  queen's  room,  but  Marie  Antoinette  was  fortu- 
nately unaware  of  the  fact. 


212  The  French  Revolution 

These  massacres,  though  traceable  immediately  to  i 
the  Commune  of  Paris,  none  the  less  were  the  out- 
come of  the  revolutionary  spirit  of  no  small  faction  of 
Frenchmen.  The  passion  for  "rights"  among  the 
educated  classes  might  result  in  legislation,  but  among 
the  ignorant  and  brutal  was  sure  to  lead  to  suspicion 
and  violence.  **The  people  of  Paris,"  said  the  Giron- 
din  Louvet  a  few  days  later,  in  his  attack  upon 
Robespierre  in  the  Assembly,  '*can  fight;  they  cannot 
murder."  But  Louvet  should  have  known  better. 
The  people  of  Paris  could  do  both.  "Do  you  think 
I  deserve  only  twenty-five  francs?"  shouted  a  baker's 
boy.  "Why,  I  have  killed  forty  with  my  own  hands." 
And  the  Commune  paid  173  such  butchers,  as  we  know 
from  an  official  list.  In  itself  this  shows  that  the: 
massacres  were  not  the  product  of  mere  mob-frenzy, 
and  how  deliberate  the  proceedings  were  is  to  be  seen 
from  other  facts.  Wine  and  food  were  sent  to  the 
men  at  work  in  the  prisons.  Benches,  under  charge 
of  ushers,  were  marked  Pour  les  Messieurs  and 
Pour  les  Dames^  and  upon  them  through  days  and 
nights  the  "gentlemen"  and  "ladies"  sat  to  enjoy  the 
spectacle!  All  France  was  summoned  by  circulars 
of  the  Commune  to  join  in  purging  the  nation  of  its 
enemies  and  in  terrifying  the  aristocrats.^  "Apprized," 
ran  this  circular,  "that  barbarous  hordes  are  advanc- 
ing against  it,  the  Commune  of  Paris  hastens  to 
inform  its  brothers  in  all  the  departments  that  part 
of  the  ferocious  conspirators  confined  in  the  prisons 
have  been  put  to  death  by  the  people,  acts  of  justice 

'The  Assembly's  submission  to  the  Commune  was  complete.  The 
actions  of  the  latter  body  were  simply  usurpations  of  sovereignty,  and 
with  its  rise  to  power,  liberty  ceased  in  France.  ^ 


The  Jacobin  Conquest  213 

which  appear  to  it  indispensable  for  repressing  by  ter- 
ror the  legions  of  traitors  encompassed  by  its  walls, 
at  the  moment  when  they  were  about  to  march  against 
the  enemy ;  and  no  doubt  the  nation,  after  the  long 
series  of  treasons  which  have  brought  it  to  the  brink 
of  the  abyss,  will  eagerly  adopt  this  useful  and  neces- 
sary expedient;  and  all  the  French  will  say,  like  the 
Parisians,  'We  are  marching  against  the  enemy,  and 
we  will  not  leave  behind  us  traitors  to  murder  our 
wives  and  our  children.'  " 

And  France  heeded  the  call.  Atrocities  were  com- 
mitted throughout  its  entire  extent — atrocities  that 
are  without  excuse,  though  unhappily  not  without 
parallel.^ 

Yet  it  must  be  admitted  that  the  massacres  of  Sep- 
tember did  what  they  were  intended  to  do — they  stopped 
counter-revolution  in  Paris,  and  terrified  the  bourgeoisie 
into  submission  to  the  Jacobin  programme.  The 
shame  of  it  is  that  this  could  be  true,  and  that  there 
was  no  government  strong  enough  to  bring  the  Com- 
mune and  its  agents  to  punishment. 

While  Paris  was  thus  inhumanly  delivered  from  its 
absurd   fears   of    unarmed    prisoners,    the   victorious 

'Murders  of  one  to  eight  persons  of  quality  occurred  in  Meaux,  Rheims, 
Couches,  Lyons,  Charleville,  Caen,  Gisors,  Bordeaux,  Cambray,  while  at 
Versailles  one  Fournier,  called  the  American,  massacred  forty-four  pris- 
oners who  had  been  charged  with  high  treason  and  were  being  conducted 
by  him  to  Paris.  The  Commune  congratulated  him  on  the  deed.  There 
was  mob  violence  in  many  other  towns.  The  abysmal  brutality  of  it  all 
was  inevitable  among  masses  so  debased  as  the  proletariat  of  all 
cities  in  France.  Yet  one  constantly  meets  with  instances  of  kind- 
heartedness.  Probably  the  best  term  with  which  to  describe  the  entire 
homicidal  epidemic  is  "political  persecution."  The  church  allied  with  abso- 
lutism had  taught  men  the  lesson  of  bloodshed  all  too  well  in  France  and 
neighboring  countries.  Recall  only  the  Albigenses,  St.  Bartholomew's 
Night,  and  the  Low  Countries.  On  the  September  massacres,  see  Carlyle, 
III,  bk.  i;  Mortimer-Ternaux.  Hist,  de  la  Terreur,  III,  i;  Buchez  et  Roux, 
Hist.  Pari.,  XVII,  331-475,  XVIII,  70-477  (including  the  accounts  of  several 
eye-witnesses,  some  of  whom  barely  escaped  death);  Wallon,  La  TerreuYy  I, 
31-45-  Taine,  French  Revolution,  bk.  iv,  chs.  9,  10,  contains  a  large  amount 
of  information  concerning  the  violence  in  the  departments. 


a  14  The  French  Revolution 

advance  of  the  Prussians  was  stopped  by  the  insignifi- 
cant ''cannonade  of  Valmy" — or  was  it  by  Danton's 
bribing  the  mistress  of  the  king  of  Prussia? — and  all 
danger  was  past.  The  massacres  were  forgotten  in 
fetes  and  theaters  and  receptions.  The  royal  family, 
comfortably  imprisoned  in  the  Temple,  could  no  longer 
intrigue,  and  Paris  regained  its  gaiety. 

Republican  France  began  its  epoch  with  a  new 
propagandism  in  behalf  of  liberty.  All  administrative, 
municipal,  and  judicial  bodies  were  ordered  to  be 
remade,  lest  they  should  be  "gangrened  with  royal- 
ism."  "Citizen"  and  "citizeness"  {cttoyen  and  cito- 
yenne)  replaced  "monsieur"  and  "madame"  as  terms 
of  address.  Savoy  and  Nice  had  been  conquered 
in  September,  and  by  the  end  of  October  no  enemy 
remained  within  France.  Dumouriez  invaded  the  Low 
Countries,  and  November  6th  his  barefooted,  ill-armed 
troops,  shouting  the  Marseillaise,  defeated  the  Aus- 
trians  at  Jemmapes,  and  by  the  middle  of  December 
the  French  were  masters  of  the  Netherlands,  the 
Meuse,  and  the  Scheldt.  Custine  captured  Mayence, 
and  threatened  all  western  Germany.  By  the  decree 
of  November  19th,  the  Convention  declared  that  the 
cause  of  nations  was  arrayed  against  that  of  kings, 
and  promised  aid  to  any  nation  which  would  rise 
against  its  tyrant.* 

But  during  these  military  successes  France  was 
passing  through  a  new  period  of  internal  struggle. 

Under  the  influence  of  the  September  massacres 
elections  had  been  going  on  for  that  body  which, 
according  to   the   Constitution    of   1791,   could  alone 

'This  absurd  decree  was  later  repealed  through  the  efforts  of  Danton^ 


The  Jacobin  Conquest  215 

produce  a  new  constitution.  In  the  Convention,  which 
assembled  on  September  21,  1792,  parties  were  more 
than  ever  marked,  and  again  show  more  clearly  than 
any  other  symptom  the  progress  of  the  Revolution. 
The  Right  was  now  the  loosely  joined,  mutually  jealous 
Girondin  party,  which  had  formed  a  part  of  the  Left  in 
the  Legislative  Assembly;  the  Center,  or  Marsh,  was 
again  neutral;  the  Mountain  was  now  strongly  repre- 
sented. In  it  were  to  be  found  the  leaders  of  the  Jaco- 
bins, and  ilideed  most  of  the  extreme  popular  leaders 
including  Robespierre,  Danton,  and  Marat.  Taken  as 
a  whole,  the  members  of  the  Convention  had  been  also 
members  of  the  Constituent  or  Legislative  Assembly, 
and  were  therefore  not  without  experience.  Many 
of  them,  especially  in  the  Marsh,  were  men  of  high 
character.  Yet  again  there  was  an  absence  of  definite 
purpose  on  the  part  of  the  great  mass  of  delegates, 
and  again  the  history  of  France  was  to  be  written  by 
well-organized,  aggressive  minorities — notably  by  the 
Mountain,  among  whose  leaders  professional  education 
and  philosophical  sympathies  had  not  destroyed  politi- 
cal energy. 

In  the  first  session  of  the  Convention  (September 
21,  1792)  all  parties  united  in  abolishing  monarchy 
and  in  declaring  France  a  republic,  and  in  due  time 
a  committee  was  appointed  to  draw  up  a  new  consti- 
tution. But  constitution-making  was  of  far  less 
importance  than  the  question  as  to  whether  the  Giron- 
dins  or  the  Mountain  should  control  the  Revolution 
in  its  new  constructive  phase.  Both  parties  were  thor- 
oughly devoted  to  the  Republic,  but  differed  in  many 
details.     The  Girondins  were  opposed  to  the  suprem- 


2i6  The  French  Revolution 

acy  of  Paris  in  the  state,  and  favored  a  decentralized 
government,  in  wliich  the  departments  should  be 
allowed  a  large  share  of  independence.  The  Mountain, 
composed  largely  of  Parisians,  believed  in  a  strong, 
centralized  state,  in  which,  if  necessary,  there  should 
be,  as  Marat  said,  a  dictator  in  behalf  of  liberty.'  Yet 
this  divergence  of  opinion  need  not  necessarily  have 
been  a  ground  of  strife.  The  real  difference  lay  in 
the  character  of  the  men  composing  the  two  parties. 
The  Girondins  were  cultured  enthusiasts,  incapable 
of  organizing  a  political  ''machine"  and  creditably  dis- 
gusted with  the  Commune.  The  men  of  the  Moun- 
tain, on  the  other  hand,  were  no  less  devoted  to  the 
public  weal  than  the  Girondins,  and  no  less  philo- 
sophically inclined ;  but  they  were  men  of  action  rather 
than  words,  and  knew  how  to  organize  and  control 
the  proletariat  of  Paris.  In  consequence,  they  were 
ready  to  cooperate  with  the  Commune,  of  which  some 
of  them  were  members.  The  struggle  was,  therefore, 
not  for  liberty,  but  for  mastery;  not  between  the 
privileged  and  unprivileged,  but  between  the  repre- 
sentatives of  the  middle  class  of  the  departments  and 
the  representatives  of  the  proletariat  of  Paris. 

The  struggle  began  by  the  Girondins,  who  were  in 
the  majority,  endeavoring,  in  opposition  to  the  Con- 
stitution of  1 791,  to  obtain  a  seat  on  the  floor  of  the 
Convention  for  Roland,  a  minister.  The  proposal  was 
undoubtedly  wise,  but  the  Mountain  opposed  it 
strongly.  The  struggle  grew  bitter,  until  Danton  put 
an  end  to  the  matter  by  saying  that  if  M.  Roland  was 

»How  thoroughly  the  Girondins  represented  the  departments  is  shown 
by  the  fact  that  in  Paris  they  were  able  to  elect  only  one  representative 
to  *he  Convention.  . 


The  Jacobin  Conquest  217 

to  be  admitted  to  the  Convention,  Madame  Roland 
had  better  be  admitted  also! 

The  Girondins  had  in  the  Legislative  Assembly 
attempted  to  investigate  the  September  massacres, 
and  in  the  Convention  they  followed  up  the  matter  by 
accusing  Robespierre  of  aiming  at  a  dictatorship,  and 
by  attacking  Marat  for  proposing  that  very  thing. 
Both  attacks  resulted  only  in  giving  the  two  men 
greater  popularity  among  their  constituencies  and  in 
winning  the  implacable  hatred  of  the  Mountain.  Nor 
were  the  Girondins  any  more  fortunate  in  their  pro- 
posal to  give  the  Convention  a  guard  of  three  thou- 
sand men  from  the  departments.  It  was  their  fatal 
mistake  always  to  threaten  and  not  to  act,  to  debate 
and  not  to  organize.  The  very  departments  they 
trusted  were  later  to  be  discovered  among  the  sup- 
porters of  their  enemies. 

The  Mountain's  attack  upon  the  Girondins  had 
the  support  of  the  "sovereigns"  in  the  gallery,  the 
Commune,  and  the  poorer  wards.  It  charged  them 
with  being  federalists — that  is,  with  seeking  to  make 
each  department  in  France  a  separate  state  and 
the  nation  simply  a  federation — and  with  being  roy- 
alists because  they  were  not  willing  to  go  to  extremes 
in  their  attack  upon  the  imprisoned  king.  Yet  during 
the  latter  months  of  1792,  while  the  French  armies 
were  wonderfully  successful  on  the  frontiers,  the 
Girondins  were  able  to  control  the  Convention.  They 
continued  to  waste  time,  however,  over  the  Septem- 
ber massacres,  which,  as  Danton  said,  had  become 
ancient  history.  But  one  great  problem,  whose  solu- 
tion  would  determine  who   really  were  the  masters 


21 8  The  French  Revolution 

of  the  Swamp  and  the  Convention,  was  yet  to  be 
solved  —  the  disposition  of  Citizen  Louis  Capet,  ex- 
king  of  France.  Little  by  little  the  cause  of  the  king 
and  the  Girondins  became  united.  Since  the  loth  of 
August  Louis  had  been  kept  a  prisoner  in  the  old  for- 
tress of  the  Knights  Templar,  known  as  the  Temple, 
and  with  him  also  the  members  of  his  family.  But 
the  hatred  shown  him  by  the  people  of  Paris  was  not 
satisfied  with  deposition  and  imprisonment.  It  de- 
clared that  he  was  in  league  with  the  foreign  invaders, 
and  that  he  must  be  tried  for  treason.  The  Girondins 
were  willing  that  he  should  be  tried,  and  even  moved 
that  a  committee  be  formed  to  examine  the  papers 
found  on  the  loth  of  August,  but  they  were  not  will- 
ing that  he  should  be  executed.  The  Jacobins,  on 
the  contrary,  through  Robespierre,  declared  that, 
traitor  or  not,  the  death  of  Louis  was  a  political  neces- 
sity. It  is  in  this  light  that  the  trial  granted  him  by 
the  Girondins  is  to  be  regarded.  It  is  true  that  new 
evidence,  more  or  less  compromising,  was  found  in 
an  iron  box  of  the  king's  own  manufacture;  but  after 
all,  the  Convention  did  not  have  the  evidence  we  now 
possess,  and  the  real  grounds  on  which  Louis  was  con- 
demned were  political,  not  legal. 

Three  questions  were  put  to  the  Convention,  and 
each  had  to  be  answered  by  each  delegate  aloud : 

1.  Is  Louis  guilty  of  conspiracy?  Six  hundred  and 
eighty-three  of  seven  hundred  and  thirty-nine  mem- 
bers voted  yes.     Not  one  voted  no. 

2.  Shall  sentence  be  referred  to  the  people?  Four 
hundred  and  twenty-four  voted  no. 

3.  What  shall  be  the  penalty  of  conviction?     On 


The  Jacobin  Conquest  219 

this  last  question  voting  continued  through  the  night 
of  January  16  and  the  day  of  January  17,  1793.  In 
the  galleries  was  the  wild  crowd  pricking  each  vote 
with  pins  in  cards,  howling,  cursing,  threatening. 
Every  deputy  knew  his  future,  and  perhaps  his  life, 
hung  upon  his  vote.  Many  of  the  best  men  believed 
Louis  must  die  for  the  nation,  many  timid  men  were 
terrified  into  submission.  At  last,  amid  deepest 
silence,  Vergniaud,  president  of  the  day,  declared 
the  vote.  Seven  hundred  and  twenty-one  deputies 
were  present.  Three  hundred  and  sixty-one  were 
needed  for  a  decision.  Besides  26,  who  voted  for 
death   and   delay,    361  voted   for  death. 

Three  days  later  came  a  final  struggle  for  delay  in 
executing  the  sentence.  But  the  Convention  voted 
380-310  that  it  should  be  executed  immediately.  On 
the  next  morning,  the  21st  of  January,  1793,  the  unfor- 
tunate man,  who,  as  he  told  his  counsel,  had  been 
unable  during  two  hours'  consideration  to  discover 
that  he  had  ever  given  his  people  cause  for  reproach,' 
after  a  painful  interview  with  his  family,  was  taken 
from  his  cell  and  carried  to  the  guillotine.  He 
attempted  to  address  the  crowd  on  the  scaffold,  but 
his  voice  was  drowned  in  the  roar  of  drums,  and 
a  second  later  Louis  added  another  to  the  short  list 
of  monarchs  who  have  died  like  criminals.^  It  was 
not  merely  the  fault  of  the  times,  so  fearfully  out  of 
joint  and  so  madly  bound  to  be  rejointed.  There 
is  indisputable  evidence  that  Louis  had  been  guilty  of 

^Such  a  statement  can  hardly  stand  as  correct.  Louis  had  been  in  con- 
stant communication  with  the  enemies  of  France. 

'The  various  orders  for  the  conduct  of  the  execution  are  now  preserved 
in  the  Carnavallet  Museum  in  Paris.  Some  good  sources  declare  that  Louis 
was  allowed  to  finish  his  address. 


aao  The  French  Revolution 

unfaithfulness  to  the  constitution  he  had  sworn  to 
maintain.  Yet  this  evidence  was  not  known  to  the 
Convention,  and  even  a  modern  student,  recalling  the 
unfortunate  man's  good  intentions,  and  how  simply 
and  nobly  he  passed  his  last  hours,  is  almost  ready  to 
forget  his  share  in  bringing  about  his  own  downfall. 

The  fall  of  Louis  meant  much  to  the  Girondins. 
They  had  been  beaten  in  their  half-hearted  struggle 
for  moderate  action;  the  radical  party  of  Danton  and 
Marat  had  triumphed.  From  the  trial  of  the  king  the 
final  struggle  between  the  now  comparatively  moder- 
ate Girondins  and  the  Mountain  increased  daily. 

There  was  little  excuse  for  the  struggle.  France 
needed  united  leaders  rather  than  party  struggles. 
England,  under  the  influence  of  Burke,  and  angry  at 
the  loss  of  trade  monopolies  through  the  opening  of 
the  Scheldt  to  unrestricted  commerce,  had  been  grow- 
ing increasingly  hostile  to  the  Revolution,  and  on 
December  31,  1792,  had  refused  to  recognize  the 
minister  of  the  French  Republic.  More  overt  acts  of 
hostility  followed,  and  February  ist  the  Convention 
declared  war  against  England  and  Holland;  and 
March  7th  against  Spain.  A  levy  of  three  hundred 
thousand  men  was  laid  upon  the  nation,  and  commis- 
sioners with  unlimited  powers  were  sent  to  quiet  the 
rapidly  disintegrating  departments.  Nevertheless, 
the  future  darkened.  On  March  9th  the  great  coali- 
tion of  all  Europe  was  formed  against  France;  two 
days  later  the  peasants  of  the  Vendue  as  one  man 
rose  in  arms  against  forced  service  in  the  army  of  a 
republic  they  hated  because  of  its  treatment  of  the 
church;  March  i8th   came   the   disastrous  defeat  of 


The  Jacobin  Conquest  221 

Dumouriez  at  Neerwinden ;  on  April  4th  came  the  news 
that  Custine  had  abandoned  Mayence,  and,  what  was 
more  appalling,  that  Dumouriez  had  gone  over  to  the 
enemy.  It  was  no  time  for  dissensions.  Divided  coun- 
sels might  destroy  the  state.  ^  The  real  greatness  of 
Danton  appears  at  this  crisis.  In  his  speech  of  March 
loth  he  said:  "What  matters  my  reputation?  May 
France  be  free  and  my  name  forever  sullied!  .... 
Let  us  fight.  Let  us  conquer  our  liberty.  Extend  your 
energies  in  every  direction.  Let  the  rich  listen  to 
my  words.  Our  conquests  must  pay  our  debts,  or 
else  the  rich  will  have  to  pay  them  before  long.     The 

situation  is  a  cruel  one We  must  break  out 

of  the  situation  by  a  great  effort.  Let  us  conquer 
Holland.  Let  us  reanimate  the  republican  party  in 
England.  Let  us  make  France  march  forward,  and 
we  shall  go  down  glorious  to  posterity.  Fulfill  your 
great  destiny.  No  more  debates,  no  more  quarrels, 
and  the  country  is  saved." 

But  with  a  foolish  arrogance  of  superiority  the 
Girondins,  notwithstanding  many  offers  on  the  part 
of  Danton,  whose  whole  interest  lay  in  saving  France 
from  the  foreigner,  refused  to  unite  with  his  party, 
charging  it  with  being  stained  with  the  blood  of  the 
September  massacres.  Such  a  refusal  was  unfortu- 
nate both  for  France  and  themselves.  The  Giron- 
dins, although  they  still  were  able  to  control  a  majority 
of  the  house,  were  incapable  of  bringing  any  sort  of 
success  to  their  arms,  or  order  to  the  state.  There 
is,  indeed,  scarcely  a  measure  of  importance  traceable 
to  them  during  the  months  of  their  leadership,  and 
their  attack  upon  the  Mountain  was  no  more  suicidal 


222  The  French  Revolution 

for  themselves  than  dangerous  to  France.  They 
justly  fell  before  a  party  which  at  heart  was  no  more 
revolutionary,  but  which  saw  the  need  of  the  moment 
and  was  preeminently  the  party  of  action. 

The  final  struggles  came  about  through  an  effort 
to  control  the  agitators  of  Paris  by  a  committee  of 
twelve,  but  even  more  immediately  by  a  new  attack 
upon  Marat,  who  had  stung  the  Girondins  to  madness 
by  nicknaming  them  "the  little  statesmen."  The 
Girondins  were  able  to  bring  about  a  vote  to  send 
Marat  before  the  newly  established  revolutionary 
tribunal — only  to  have  him  promptly  and  unanimously 
acquitted  by  judges  who  were  by  no  means  the  crea- 
tures of  the  Mountain. 

The  month  of  May  was  devoted  to  preparations  for 
the  last  struggle.  The  Girondins  were  divided  among 
themselves  and  averse  to  extreme  measures.  The 
Commune  came  to  the  aid  of  the  Mountain,  and 
again  looked  to  the  mob.  It  was  a  bitter  time,  too 
full  of  complicated  debate  and  voting  to  be  easily 
followed,  but  the  last  three  days  of  struggle  were 
a  French  Pride's  Purge.  Just  as  the  king  had  been 
brought  to  Paris  by  insurrection,  as  he  had  been 
intimidated  and  at  last  deposed  by  insurrection,  so 
now  the  party  of  moderation — or  better,  inaction — 
was  to  be  intimidated  and  deposed  by  insurrection. 
On  May  31st  and  June  ist  the  Commune  attempted  to 
bring  about  the  fall  of  the  Girondins,  but  failed, 
once  because  the  Convention  unexpectedly  adopted 
measures  intended  to  precipitate  disturbance,  and 
once  because  Saturday  was  pay-day,  and  the  poorer 
sections  preferred  wages  to    riots.     But  on  Sunday, 


The  Jacobin  Conquest  223 

June  2d,  plans  were  better  laid.  A  special  troop  of 
roughs  was  hired  at  forty  sous  per  day,  and  together 
with  other  armed  men,  formed  into  a  sort  of  insurrec- 
tionary army.  Backed  by  this  force,  the  Commune, 
through  its  representatives,  demanded  that  the  Con- 
vention vote  the  arrest  of  about  thirty-seven  of  its 
members,  including  twenty-two  prominent  Girondins. 
This  demand  was  refused. 

Thereupon  the  Convention  was  surrounded  by  armed 
men.  In  solemn  procession,  with  the  president  at  their 
head,  the  deputies  went  forth  to  reconnoiter.  They 
found  that  there  was  no  mistake ;  they  were  all  pris- 
oners. In  the  presence  of  soldiers,  llsLvat  summoned 
the  deputies  to  return  to  their  seats.  Couthon,  with 
partiotic  cynicism  said:  "You  see,  gentlemen,  that 
you  are  respected  and  obeyed  by  the  people,  and  that 
you  can  vote  on  the  question  which  is  submitted  to 
you.  Lose  no  time,  then,  in  complying  with  their 
wishes."  Unable  to  leave  their  hall,  tired  of  the 
prolonged  struggle,  quieting  their  consciences  by  not 
voting  at  all,  the  great  majority  of  the  Convention 
allowed  the  Mountain  to  vote  that  thirty-one  deputies 
should  be  put  under  arrest.  They  were  not  imprisoned, 
but  were  allowed  to  go  about  at  will.  But  they  no 
longer  had  a  voice  in  the  Convention,  and  with  their 
expulsion  the  triumph  of  the  Mountain  was  complete. 
The  party  of  inefficient  theorists,  the  champions  of 
an  impossible  nation  composed  of  thousands  of  all 
but  independent  municipalities,  had  gone  down  before 
the  party  of  action,  at  once  the  idols  of  a  "sovereign" 
people  and  the  champions  of  a  centralized  government 
compared  with  which  Bourbon  absolutism  was  consti- 
tutional monarchy.    At  last  France  was  to  be  governed. 


CHAPTER    XVI 

THE    REIGN    OF  TERROR   AS  A   POLITICAL    EXPERI- 


I.  The  Immediate  Effects  of  the  Coup  d'Efafoi]une  2,  1793. 
II.  The  Circumstances  Giving  Rise  to  the  Reign  of  Terror: 
I.  The  Crisis  in  France;  2.  The  Supposed  Failure  of  Ordi- 
nary Bases  of  Constitutional  Government;  3.  The  Terror 
not  Anarchic.  III.  The  Terror:  i.  Instituted  by  the  Organ- 
ization of  the  Committee  of  Public  Safety;  2.  The  Govern- 
ment Declared  Revolutionary.  IV.  The  Instruments  of 
the  Terror:  i.  The  Committee  of  Public  Safety;  2.  The 
Committee  of  General  Security;  3.  The  Revolutionary 
Tribunal,  the  Sans-Culotte  Army,  the  Local  Tribunals; 
4.  The  "Deputies  on  Mission";  5.  The  Terrorists'  Prin- 
ciple Definitely  Stated. 

The  immediate  results  of  the  coup  d'etat  of  June  2, 
1793,  were,  on  the  one  hand,  the  supremacy  of  the 
Mountain  and  of  the  Commune,  but  on  the  other,  the 
increase  of  the  dangers  by  which  France  was  beset. 
Several  of  the  Girondin  leaders,  including  Barbaroux 
and  Buzot,  left  Paris,  and  endeavored  to  head  a  revolt 
of  the  departments  against  the  Convention.  The 
nation  as  a  whole  was  by  no  means  ready  to  submit 
to  the  irresponsible  rule  of  Paris,  and  four  of  the  lar- 
gest cities  of  France,  Lyons,  Marseilles,  Bordeaux,  and 
Caen,  rose  in  rebellion.  In  each  of  these  towns  the 
Jacobin  influence  had  been  supreme,  but  in  each  the 
bourgeoisie  without  difficulty    regained    possession    of 

'In  general,  see  Stephens,  French  Revolution,  II,  chs.  9,  10;  Taine, 
French  Revolution,  bk.  vii,  chs.  1-3;  Mignet,  French  Revolution,  ch.  8;  Von 
Sybel,  French  Revolution,  III,  84-118. 

224 


Reign  of  Terror  as  a  Political  Experiment    225 

the  municipal  government  and  prepared  to  resist  the 
Convention.  Could  they  have  combined  under  some 
competent  leader,  these  cities  might  have  put  an  end 
to  the  Commune's  influence;  but  here  again  the 
inefficiency  of  the  Girondins  showed  itself,  and  the 
Convention  was  able  to  deal  with  each  city  independ- 
ently, while  the  Girondins  themselves  were  declared 
outlaws.^  This  half-hearted  effort  at  civil  war  there- 
fore failed,  but  none  the  less  for  the  time  being  it 
constituted  a  real  danger  to  the  Convention,  and  gave 
apparent  justification  for  extreme  measures.  The 
permanence  of  the  republic  seemed  to  depend  upon 
the  masses  rather  than  upon  the  bourgeoisie.  So  far 
had  political  indifference  done  its  work. 

The  danger  from  foreign  war  was  vastly  greater 
and  of  immeasurable  influence  upon  the  course  of  the 
Revolution.  Had  there  been  no  war,  the  dissensions 
between  the  Girondins  and  the  Mountain  would  in  all 
probability  have  arisen,  but  the  Terror  would  hardly 
have  been  endured.  As  it  was,  France  patriotically 
submitted  to  the  Committee  of  Public  Safety,  since 
it  alone  seemed  capable  of  so  organizing  the  state  as 
to  beat  back  the  foreigners.  The  awful  mistake  of 
the  Girondin  war  policy  is  therefore  patent.  The  war 
brought  the  Terror. 

When  the  Mountain,  with  the  aid  of  the  Paris 
Commune,  finally,  though  without  bloodshed,  had 
suppressed  the  champions  of  Greek  and  Roman  senti- 
mentality, and  was  able  to  act  as  well  as  debate,  it 

*Such  of  them  as  had  not  left  Paris  were  subsequently  guillotined,  and 
those  who  had  gone  to  raise  the  departments,  after  months  of  adventures 
and  hiding,  perished  miserably  almost  to  a  man.  P6tion,  the  former  mayor 
of  Paris,  and  Buzot,  the  lover  of  Madame  Roland,  committed  suicide.  Guaaet, 
Salle,  Barbaroux,  and  others  were  guillotined.  Louvet  returned  to  Paris 
to  visit  his  mistress,  and  later  escaped. 


226  The  French  Revolution 

saw  Holland,  Portugal,  the  Two  Sicilies,  the  Roman 
States,  Sardinia  and  Piedmont,  Spain,  Austria,  Prussia, 
England,  united  against  France;  French  ports  block- 
aded by  the  most  powerful  navy  in  the  world;  the 
departments  rising  to  avenge  the  Girondins;  the 
French  armies  everywhere  defeated;  Dumouriez,  the 
greatest  commander  of  the  French  armies,  gone  over 
to  the  enemy;  a  third  of  the  territory  of  France, 
including  Vendue  and  many  great  cities,  in  open  and 
successful  insurrection;  the  assignats  rapidly  depre- 
ciating; and  throughout  the  nation  misery,  poverty, 
and  approaching  anarchy.  No  government  was  ever 
beset  with  greater  or  more  desperate  needs,  and  no 
government  ever  proceeded  more  relentlessly  to  bring 
success  to  its  armies,  order  to  its  domestic  affairs, 
food  to  its  poor,  annihilation  to  rebellion.  But  on 
what  could  government  be  based?  Not  on  the  con- 
stitutions, for  millions  of  Frenchmen  were  in  arms 
against  constitutions;  not  on  the  past,  for  the  Old 
Regime  and  the  Constitutionalists  of  1789-91  were  the 
Mountain's  bitterest  opponents;  not  on  the  armies, 
for  generals  might  at  any  moment  imitate  Dumouriez 
or  La  Fayette;  not  on  the  ready  assent  of  law-abiding 
citizens,  for  the  bourgeoisie  were  enemies  of  the 
Jacobins.  The  question  was  as  legitimate  as  press- 
ing, and  the  Mountain's  answer  was  Upon  Terror.  If 
men  would  not  obey  government  from  love,  they  must 
be  made  to  obey  from  fear.  ^     The  action  was  only  a  rig- 

'See  Danton's  speech  of  September  5,  1793,  Stephens,  Orators  of  the 
French  Revolution,  II,  262;  Barere's  speech  of  September  5,  1793,  Moniteur, 
Year  I,  No.  251;  Robespierre's  speech  of  17th  Pluvidse;  Buchez  at  Roux, 
Hist.  Pari.,  XXXI,  268-290;  Afoniteur,  Year  II,  No.  251;  the  law  of  22d 
Prairial,  Moniteur,  Year  II,  No.  264.  For  the  application  of  the  principle  to 
oational  problems,  see  Wallon,  La  Terreur,  II,  341-352;  Mortimer-Ternaux, 
La  Terreur,  VIII,  liv.  46-48. 


Reign  of  Terror  as  a  Political  Experiment    227 

orous  application  of  the  dominant  political  philosophy 
of  Rousseau:  the  sovereign  people  must  be  obeyed. 

It  is  therefore  a  fundamental  mistake  to  think  of 
the  Terror  as  a  carnival  of  brute  passion  or  the  out- 
come of  anarchic  forces  become  ascendant.  This 
was  true  of  certain  days,  like  October  5  and  6,  1789, 
and  especially  of  the  work  of  the  Commune  during  the 
interregnum  of  August  lo-September  20,  1792,  and 
of  the  work  of  certain  agents  of  the  Convention,  but 
utterly  false  in  the  case  of  the  government  by  com- 
mittees between  June,  1793,  and  July,  1794.  The 
Terrorists  were  seekers  after  order,  not  after  anarchy, 
and  while  it  lasted  the  Terror  was  a  genuine  experi- 
ment in  politics — crude,  hideous,  and  never  to  be 
confounded  with  the  work  of  the  generous  idealists  of 
the  Constituent  Assembly;  but  in  a  politically  igno- 
rant and  morally  weak  nation  like  France,  pos- 
sessing not  a  single  man  of  first-rate  ability  among 
its  legislators,  probably  inevitable.  It  was  all  but 
foreseen  by  Mirabeau  when  he  failed  to  induce  the 
court  to  regard  the  work  of  the  Constituent  Assembly 
seriously  and  to  accept  its  results  sincerely.  But 
more  than  all,  it  was  implicit  in  the  absolutism  and 
the  morals  of  the  Old  Regime. 

The  legal  basis,  so  to  speak,  of  the  new  govern- 
ment was  found  in  the  declaration  of  martial  or  revo- 
lutionary law  for  the  entire  nation.  The  Convention 
had  been  summoned  to  draw  up  a  new  Constitution, 
and  had  fulfilled  its  purpose  when,  on  June  24,  1793, 
the  report  of  its  committee  was  adopted.^     The  new 

^This  Constitution  was  the  second  proposed  to  the  Convention,  the  other 
being  that  of  the  Girondins,  and  drawn  up  by  Condorcet.  According  to  this 
proposed  Constitution  the  executive  was  to  consist  of  seven  ministers  and  a 


22  8  The  French  Revolution 

Constitution  was  a  codification  of  Jacobin  Rousseau- 
ism.  The  people  were  declared  to  be  the  seat  of  all 
power,  and  the  government  was  to  consist  of  a  Legis- 
lative Assembly  and  an  Executive  Council  of  twenty- 
four  ministers,  chosen  by  the  Assembly.  The  most 
remarkable  feature  of  this  instrument  was  the  referen- 
dum provision,  according  to  which  every  law  of  excep- 
tional importance  was  to  be  referred  to  the  people  for 
approval.  In  some  respects,  notably  in  its  municipal 
administration,  it  resembled  the  Constitution  of  1791, 
but  was  much  simpler.  The  weakening  of  the  execu- 
tive, as  well  as  the  difficulty  of  putting  any  new  Con- 
stitution into  effect  during  the  crisis  resulting  from  the 
war,  led  the  Mountain,  October  10,  1793,  to  suspend 
this  Constitution  until  a  general  peace,  and  France 
passed  into  the  hands  of  the  Convention.  Singularly 
enough,  the  practical  result  of  this  change  was  to  place 
France  in  something  the  same  constitutional  condition 
as  England  under  the  government  of  the  House  of 
Commons,  the  actual  executive  being  not  the  minis- 
ters, who  became  hardly  more  than  clerks,  but  the 
great  Committee  of  Public  Safety.  That  which  Mira- 
beau  had  urged,  the  sharing  of  the  ministers,  as  rep- 
resentatives of  the  executive,  in  the  legislative  body's 
deliberations,  was  now  brought  about  in  fact — though 

secretary  elected  by  the  primary  assemblies,  each  of  450  to  ooo  members. 
These  ministers  were  simply  to  carry  out  the  decrees  of  the  legislative 
body,  an  Assembly  of  one  chamber.  The  initiative  in  legislation  was  not 
to  be  confined  to  the  Assembly,  but  any  citizen  could  propose  a  new  law,  the 
repeal  of  an  old  law,  or  a  vote  of  censure  of  any  act  of  administration,  and 
this  had  to  be  considered  by  the  Assembly  if  favored  by  the  primary  assem- 
blies of  his  department.  The  principle  of  election  was  carried  to  an  ex- 
treme, and  the  Constitution  as  a  whole  is  a  most  striking  illustration  of  the 
impracticable  spirit  of  the  Girondins.  The  entire  scheme  was  elaborated 
with  the  intention  of  making  party  spirit  and  the  election  of  popular  leaders 
impossible.  See  Stephens, /^r^«c//  Revolution,  II,  530-533;  Bire,  La  Legende 
dts  Girondins,  ch.  7;  Guadet,  Lea  Girondins,  228-242. 


Reign  of  Terror  as  a  Political  Experiment    229 

not  in  name — by  the  very  elements  by  which  it  had 
formerly  been  opposed. 

The  Committee  of  Public  Safety  was  in  large  meas- 
ure due  to  Danton's  desire  for  a  strong  executive  to 
free  France  from  the  foreigner.  It  had  been  appointed 
as  early  as  April  7,  1793,  but  was  of  relatively  small 
importance  until  August  i,  when  Danton  procured 
for  it  a  credit  of  ten  million  dollars,  to  be  spent 
as  it  judged  best,  and  the  Convention  intrusted  to 
it  the  execution  of  a  number  of  important  laws 
providing  for  the  confiscation  of  the  property  of  all 
outlaws,  the  arrest  of  all  foreigners  not  domiciled 
in  France,  the  condemnation  to  twenty  years'  impris- 
onment of  all  those  refusing  to  take  the  assignats  at 
their  face  value,  and  the  conduct  of  the  war  in  the 
Vendue.  A  few  days  later  the  Committee  was  given 
full  direction  of  the  foreign  war.  Such  powers 
demanded  new  members,  and  Carnot  and  Prieur- 
Duvernois  were  added  to  care  for  military  affairs. 
On  September  5,  1793,  a  number  of  decrees  were 
issued,  which,  as  Barere  moved,  made  "terror  the 
order  of  the  day."  These  decrees  established  the 
Revolutionary  sans-culotte  army,  divided  the  Revo- 
lutionary Tribunal  into  sections  to  facilitate  its  work, 
and  ordered  the  revolutionary  committees  "purified." 
On  September  6th  two  men  who  had  been  concerned 
with  the  September  massacres  of  the  year  previous, 
Billaud-Varennes  and  Collot  d'Herbois,  were  made 
members  of  the  Committee  of  Public  Safety  to  take 
charge  of  Terror,  as  Carnot  had  charge  of  military 
affairs.  Danton,  though  elected  to  membership,  and 
the  champion  of  the  Committee  in  the  Convention, 


230  The  French  Revolution 

would  not  accept  a  position  upon  it.  He  had  sworn 
not  to  become  a  member  of  any  executive  body,  and 
as  a  matter  of  fact  he  was  not  well  fitted  for  detailed 
administrative  work.  Perhaps,  too,  as  Marat  cuttingly 
said,  he  ''preferred  an  upholstered  chair  to  a  throne!" 
The  suspension  of  the  Constitution  in  October  left  the 
committee  the  real  governor  of  France. 

As  finally  organized  the  Committee  of  Public  Safety 
was  composed  of  twelve  men,'  all  well  educated, 
three  belonging  to  the  nobility  and  the  others  to  the 
bourgeoisie.  Seven  of  them  had  been  lawyers;  two 
royal  engineers;  one  a  Protestant  pastor;  one  an 
actor  and  dramatist;  one  a  law  student.  Two  only 
were  Parisians.  None  of  them,  if  we  may  possibly 
except  Carnot,  was  in  any  degree  specially  gifted 
or  fitted  for  the  great  task  which  they  undertook, 
but  all  were  desperately  in  earnest  and,  in  their 
own  mad  way,  genuinely  devoted  to  the  Republic. 
Seven  of  them  were  poor  speakers,  and  only  three, 
Robespierre  and  his  two  followers,  Saint  Just  and 
Couthon,  a  small  minority  were  thorough  followers 
of  Rousseau. 

The  actual  work  of  administration  was  divided 
among  the  members,  Carnot  caring  for  the  army, 
Andr^  for  the  navy,  Lindet  for  economic  matters. 
Saint  Just  for  constitutional  legislation,  and  Robes- 
pierre for  ''education"  and  "public  spirit."  Each 
member  of  the  committee,  however,  signed  its  decrees, 
and  it  reported  as  a  whole    through   Barere  to   the 

,0  ]^^i^  names  and  aees  in  1793  were  as  follows:  Saint-Andre,  44;  Barere, 
38;  Couthon  38;  Herault  de  S^chclles,  33;  Prieur  of  the  Marne,  33;  Saint 
i!?  r=.  n'.  J,  ?[*  L'^aet.  50;  Robessjierre.  35;  Carnot,  40;  Prieur-Duvernois, 
30;  Collot  d  Herbois,  43;  Billaud-Varennes,  33-  Stephens,  French  Revolu- 
tion, II,  288-315,  gives  brief  biographies  of  each. 


Reign  of  Terror  as  a  Political  Experiment    23 1 

Convention.  Until  the  fall  of  the  Dantonists  in  April, 
1794,  Robespierre  cannot  be  said  to  have  been  in  any 
sense  a  dictator.  The  final  step  in  the  Committee's 
control  over  France  was  taken  December  4,  1793, 
when  the  Convention  decreed  that  it  should  be  in 
charge  of  all  constituted  authorities  and  public  offi- 
cers, and  that  it  should  nominate  and  receive  the 
reports  of  all  deputies  on  mission.  Centralization 
could  not  have  been  more  complete.^ 

Subordinate  to  this  Committee  of  Public  Safety  was 
the  Committee  of  General  Security,  consisting  of 
twenty-one  members,  whose  duty  it  was  to  maintain 
order  in  Paris  and  throughout  France.  It  was  com- 
posed of  men  of  honesty  and  determination,  good 
Jacobins,  but  more  friendly  to  Billaud-Varennes  than 
to  Robespierre.  The  chief  agent  of  this  latter  com- 
mittee was  the  Revolutionary  Tribunal  of  Paris, 
inaugurated  as  early  as  March  loth,  and  whose  origin 
may  be  traced  to  Danton.^  Its  office  was  that  of 
frightening  the  people  of  Paris  and  France  into  sub- 
mission to  the  Committee  of  Public  Safety  by  merci- 
lessly arresting,  trying,  and  probably  executing,  any 
person  suspected  of  disloyalty  to  the  Republic.  It 
was  finally  reorganized  at  the  formal  institution  of  the 
Terror,  on  September  5th,  and  a  few  weeks  later  was 
made  to  consist  of  sixteen  judges,  sixty  jurors,  a  pub- 
lic accuser,  and  five  substitutes.^    As  a  sort  of  assistant 

^Even  the  ministries  were  abolished  in  April,  1794.  A  complete  account 
of  the  doings  of  this  committee  is  given  in  Aulard,  Recueil  des  Actes  du 
Comite  de  Sahit  public . 

'The  great  work  on  this  tribunal  is  Wallon,  V Histoire  du  Tribunal 
revoluiionnaire. 

'The  public  accuser  was  Fouquier-Tinville,  perhaps  the  most  selfish, 
cold-blooded  brute  the  Revolution  produced.  Herein  he  differed  from  such 
men  as  Marat,  who  were  bloodthirsty  from  —  paradoxical  as  it  may  seem  — 
motives  of  patriotism  and  genuine  love  of  the  masses. 


272  The  French  Revolution 

to  this  tribunal  there  was  established  a  revolutionary 
army  of  5,000  infantry  and  1,200  gunners,  all  sans 
culottes,  who  traveled  over  France  with  a  movable 
guillotine.*  Local  tribunals,  also,  were  everywhere 
established,  whose  duty  it  was  to  search  out  suspected 
persons,  and  pronouncing  them  guilty,  to  send  them 
to  Paris  for  further  examination  and  sentence.  Nor 
was  this  all.  The  Convention,  not  trusting  to  the 
energy  of  the  local  boards,  took  upon  itself  the  imme- 
diate control  of  the  most  important  centers  through 
its  members  delegated  for  that  purpose,  who  reported 
to  the  Committee  of  Public  Safety.  Two  of  these 
*'deputies  on  mission"  were  also  in  every  army, 
watching  over  the  general,  seeing  that  he  never 
faltered  or  showed  the  least  signs  of  defection.  At 
their  word  he  might  be  arrested  and  sent  on  to  Paris, 
there  to  be  tried. 

And  throughout  this  simple  governmental  system 
ran  the  principle  of  the  Terror:  maintenance  of  the 
Republic  by  the  masses  through  the  daily  legal  execu- 
tion of  genuine  or  suspected  enemies.  In  October, 
^793>  the  guillotine  in  Paris  began  its  systematized 
work,  and  in  that  month  50  persons  were  executed, 
including  the  unfortunate  Marie  Antoinette^  and 
twenty-one  prominent  Girondins.  In  November  58 
were  executed,  including  Philippe  Egalit^,  formerly  the 
Duke  of  Orleans,  notwithstanding  he  had  voted  for 

»The  guillotine  was  invented  by  a  philanthropic  Dr.  Guillotin,  who 
wished  to  substitute  in  capital  punishment  an  instrument  sure  to  produce 
instant  death  in  the  place  of  the  bungling  process  of  beheading  with  a 
sword.  The  guillotine  is  still  used  in  France.  It  consists  of  two  upright 
posts  between  which  a  heavy  knife  rises  and  falls.  The  criminal  is  stretched 
upon  a  board  and  then  pushed  between  the  posts.  The  knife  falls  and 
instantly  beheads  him. 

•On  the  trial  of  Marie  Antoinette,  perhaps  as  brutal  as  any  trial  in  his- 
tory, see  Wallon,  Tribunal  revolutionnaire,  V,  ch.  lo. 


Reign  of  Terror  as  a  Political  Experiment    233 

the  death  of  Louis  XVI.,  and  Madame  Roland,  whose 
traditional  words  on  the  scaffold  were  a  veritable 
epitome  of  the  republican  regime,  "O  Liberty,  how 
many  crimes  are  committed  in  thy  name !"  In  Decem- 
ber, 69  were  executed;  in  January,  1794,  71 ;  in  Febru- 
ary, 73;  in  March,  127;  in  April,  257;  in  May,  353; 
in  June  and  July,  1,376.  This  sudden  increase  in 
the  number  of  executions  was  due  to  the  efforts  of 
Robespierre  to  establish  his  Utopia. 


CHAPTER    XVII 

THE  REPUBLIC  UNDER  THE  TERROR' 

I.  The  Suppression  and  Punishment  of  Counter-Revolution- 
I.  Preventive  Measures;  2.  The  Vendue;  3.  Carrier  a; 
Nantes;  4.  Auvergne;  5.  Lyons;  6.  Marseilles  and  Bor- 
deaux; 7.  Toulon.  IL  The  Conduct  of  Foreign  War: 
I.  The  Deputies  on  Mission  in  the  Armies;  2.  French 
Victories.  HL  The  Administration  of  the  State:  r.  Poor 
vs.  Rich;  2.  The  Maximum  and  Other  Laws  in  Favor  of 
the  Masses;  3.  The  Constructive  Legislation  of  the  Terror; 
4.  Life  under  the  Terror. 

After  the  assassination  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  his 
widow  received  a  medal  struck  by  the  French  liberals, 
on  ^which,  among  other  sentiments,  was  this:  "He 
saVed  the  Republic  without  veiling  the  statue  of  lib- 
enty. "  The  Committee  of  Public  Safety  saved  France, 
t9  use  Marat's  words,  by  a  "despotism  of  liberty." 
Avowedly  the  Terror  sprang  from  a  determination  to 
maintain  the  new  rights  which  had  been  gained  by 
the  Constituent  Assembly.  That  these  were  by  no 
means  assured  is  evident  from  the  threats  of  the 
imigres  and  the  Coalition,  yet  it  is  not  probable  that 


>In  general,  see  Stephens,  French  Revolution,  II,  chs.  10-12;  Thiers, 
mch  Revolution,  11,336-372;  Von  Sybel,  French  Revolution,  III,  159-258; 
Taine.  French  Revolution,  lit,  352-419.    There  are  many  historical  novels 


French  Revolution,  11,336-372;  Von  Sybel,  French  Revolution,  III,  159-258; 
Taine,  French  Revolution,  lit,  352-419.  There  are  many  historical  novels 
covering  the  Reign  of  Terror,  the  best  of  which  are  Felix  Gras,  The  Ter- 


ror: Victor  Hugo,  1703:  Erckmann-Chatrian,  Year  One  of  the  Republic, 
although  the  latter  is  more  concerned  with  the  military  operations.  Other 
novels  are  Dickens,  Tale  of  Two  Cities;  Mitchell,  The  Story  of  Francois ; 
William  Sage.  Robert  Tournay.  The  great  works  are  WalIon,Zfl  rr;<5?ma/ 
revolutionnaire ;  Gxos,  Le  Comite  de  Salut  public ;  and  Mortimer-Ternaux, 
La  Terreur.  The  most  valuable  collections  of  sources  are  Aulard,  Recueil 
des  Actes  du  Comitc  de  Saint  public,  and  the  Archives  Parlementaires . 
Bucbez  et  Roux  is  of  less  value  from  the  governmental  point  of  view. 

234 


The  Republic  Under  the  Terror         235 

even  a  counter-revolution  could  have  undone  the 
work  of  the  political  and  social  evolution  that  found 
expression  in  the  decrees  of  August  4,  1789.  But  the 
Republic  had  traveled  far  from  that  day.  The  work 
of  the  Legislative  Assembly  had  been  less  that  of 
reform  than  of  punishing  disloyalty,  and  by  the 
beginning  of  1793,  as  far  as  the  popular  leaders  were 
concerned,  the  fear  of  the  loss  of  liberties  had  come 
really  to  mean  fear  for  themselves.  Counter-revo- 
lution meant  not  only  the  return  of  confiscated  prop- 
erty and  the  reestablishment  of  the  monarchy;  it 
meant  revenge.  Clergy  and  nobles  were  no  more 
eager  to  recover  their  lost  privileges  than  to  bring  the 
Jacobins  to  punishment,  and  the  French  defeats  of  the 
early  part  of  1793  made  the  probability  of  their  success 
strong.  These  two  motives,  therefore,  the  one  genu- 
inely patriotic  and  the  other  personal,  lay  behind  the 
measures  taken  by  the  Convention  through  its  various 
committees  and  agents,  while  the  intense  class  hatred 
between  the  masses  of  the  cities  and  the  bourgeoisie 
was  an  added  source  both  of  suspicion  and  of  seventy. 
The  three  great  dangers  confronting  France  in  1793 
were  co^iinTer-fevolutiori,"'f6reign  war,  and  anarchy. 
"  As  far  as  countef-Fevorution  went,  the  measures  of 
the  Convention  were  both  preventive  and  punitive.  To 
make  certain  of  the  loyalty  of  all  citizens,  every  per- 
son had  to  carry  about  constantly  a  properly  counter- 
signed "civic  card."  As  the  Terror  developed,  it 
took  ever  less  evidence  to  make  a  person  a  "suspect." 
Any  man  who  was  of  noble  birth,  who  had  held  office 
under  the  Old  Regime,  who  was  a  servant  or  relative 
of  an  "emigrant,"  any  one  who'  could  not  show  that 


2^6  The  French  Revolution 

he  had  made  some  sacrifice  for  the  Revolution — all 
such  were  legally  declared  to  be  suspects,  liable  to 
instant  arrest  and  summary  trial  before  the  Revolu- 
tionary Tribunal.'  By  the  law  of  April  i6,  1794, 
all  those  who  lived  without  doing  anything  and  com- 
plained of  the  Revolution  were  to  be  transported  to 
Guiana.  Even  the  Jacobin  Club  had  to  be  "puri- 
fied," and  its  members  were  obliged  to  answer  the 
question,  '*What  have  you  done  to  deserve  punishment 
in  case  of  the  reinstatement  of  the  enemies  of  the 
Republic?" 

Actual  counter-revolution  was  punished  in  a  way 
that  beggars  description.  By  far  the  most  serious 
outbreak  against  the  Convention  was  that  in  the  Ven- 
due, a  department  of  about  2,600  square  miles,  lying  on 
the  Bay  of  Biscay  between  the  Loire  and  La  Rochelle. 
It  was  peopled  by  sturdy  but  ignorant  peasants,  who 
had  welcomed  the  States  General,  but  who  had  been 
alienated  from  the  Revolution  by  the  laws  against  non- 
juring  priests.  Riots  had  broken  out  in  1791,  and  a 
somewhat  serious  revolt  had  been  crushed  in  the  follow- 
ing year;  but  the  law  of  February  25,  1793,  ordering  a 
levy  en  masse,  threw  the  entire  region  into  actual  rebel- 
lion. The  Vendeans  would  not  fight  for  the  Republic, 
and  under  the  leadership  of  members  of  the  lower 
nobility  and  self-elected  captains  of  the  peasants, 
defeated  the  republican  armies.^     In  June,  1793,  their 

» A  good  brief  account  of  the  laws  against  suspects  is  in  Wallon,  La  Ter- 
reur,  11,  1-22. 

*0n  the  rebellion  in  the  Vendee,  the  literature  is  voluminous.  Stephens, 
French  Revolution,  II,  259  n.,  gives  some  of  the  principal  French  literature. 
Reference  may,  however,  be  especially  made  to  Lescure,  Memoires  sur  La 
Vendee;  Chassin,  La  Preparation  de  la  Guerre  de  Vendee,  La  Vendee  Pa- 
triate, and  Les  Pacifications  de  POuest;  Jephson,  The  Real  French  Revolu- 
tionist, gives  a  full  account  of  the  Vendean  war,  but  is  violently  partisan  in 
his  sympathies  with  the  peasants.  His  work  also  contains  a  full  bibliography 
to  1899. 


The  Republic  Under  the  Terror         237 

commander-in-chief,  Cathelineau,  a  former  postil- 
lion, proclaimed  the  little  Louis  XVII.,  then  a  pris- 
oner in  the  Temple,  king.  No  quarter  was  given 
by  either  peasants  or  the  republican  troops,  and  the 
war  became  indescribably  cruel.  The  Vendeans 
defeated  Westermann,  and  the  new  generals  of  the 
Republic,  no  longer  professional  soldiers,  but  a  gold- 
smith, a  printer,  and  a  comic  actor,  were  equally  unsuc- 
cessful. Even  the  regular  French  troops  under  Kleber 
did  not  at  first  escape  defeat.  By  the  middle  of 
October,  1793,  however,  the  incompetent  generals  were 
superseded,  and  the  peasants  were  utterly  routed, 
most  of  their  leaders  killed,  and  armed  resistance  was 
limited  to  small  bands.  Then  the  Committee  of  Pub- 
lic Safety  undertook  to  punish  the  unfortunate  de- 
partment. Troops  were  sent  into  all  portions  of  it, 
and  during  the  first  three  months  of  1794  they 
burnt  villages,  executed  peasants,  and  spread  desola- 
tion as  widely  as  possible.  In  the  mean  time  the  Ter- 
ror had  been  established  (October  19,  1793)  in  the 
great  city  of  Nantes  Dy  the  deputy  Carrier,  a  provin- 
cial lawyer  of  no  reputation  and  less  character.  His 
method  was  not  that  of  the  Revolutionary  Tribunal  in 
Paris,  the  systematic  but  legal  condemnation  and 
execution  of  political  criminals;  the  Vendean  prisoners 
numbered  thousands,  and  the  guillotine  worked  too 
slowly  to  suit  this  republican  tyrant.  Prisoners  who 
had  actually  borne  arms  against  the  Republic,  to 
the  number  of  at  least  1,800,  were  shot  in  batches, 
utterly  without  trial.  Finding  even  this  process 
too  slow,  Carrier  invented  the  noyades,  or  *'drown- 
ings. "     The  wretched  men  and  women  were  stripped 


ftjg  The  French  Revolution 

naked,  bound,  and  sent  out  by  companies  in  old 
vessels,  which  were  sunk  in  the  Loire.  Perhaps  2,000 
Vendean  prisoners  were  thus  killed  within  less 
than  two  months.  Then  Carrier  attacked  the  bour- 
geoisie^ and  323  persons,  including  most  of  the  old 
officers  of  the  region  and  132  prominent  and  wealthy 
citizens,  were  sent  to  the  Revolutionary  Tribunal  at 
Paris. 

The  horrors  of  the  situation  were  ever  on  the 
increase.  Men  and  women  were  bound  together  in 
** republican  marriages,'"  as  Carrier  said,  and  thrown 
into  the  Loire.  The  mouth  of  the  river  was  stopped 
with  corpses,  and  thousands  of  the  inhabitants  of 
the  city  died  from  the  pestilence  resulting  from  un- 
buried  bodies.  In  the  mean  time.  Carrier  conducted 
himself  most  scandalously,  making  his  brief  sway  a 
continuous  orgy.  But  atrocity  which  did  not  make 
toward  public  order  was  not  in  accord  with  the  plans 
of  the  Committee  of  Public  Safety.  However  ready 
it  may  have  been  to  execute  nobles  and  bourgeois^  it 
did  not  wish  the  masses  to  hate  the  Republic.  Almost 
as  soon  as  Carrier's  actions  were  known,  the  Commit- 
tee's agent,  Julien,  a  boy  of  nineteen,  was  sent  to 
investigate.  At  considerable  personal  risk  he  reported 
(January  21,  1794)  the  awful  condition  of  the  city, 
and  two  weeks  later  vehemently  urged  the  removal 
of  the  deputy.  February  8th,  the  Committee  recalled 
Carrier,  and  although  the  Terror  continued,  his  atroci- 
ties were  not  repeated.  The  Vendue,  however,  had 
been  driven  to  new  revolt,  and  was  pacified  only  years 

*It  is  true  that  these  marriages  have  been  denied  (see  Wallon,  Les  Ret^ 
risentants  en  Mission^  I,  422,  seq.)i  but  they  are  distinctly  mentioned  in  the 
trial  of  Carrier. 


The  Republic  Under  the  Terror         239 

after  by  the  Directory  (August,  1796).  Carrier  himself 
went  unpunished  by  the  Committee,  but  was  guillo- 
tined soon  after  the  fall  of  Robespierre.^  This  was 
the  only  important  case  in  which  the  measures  of  the 
Committee  of  Public  Safety  failed  to  produce  the 
desired  order,  and  even  here  all  real  danger  to  the 
Republic  was,  at  least  for  the  time,  ended. 

Another  royalist  rebellion,  although  on  a  much 
smaller  scale  than  that  in  the  Vendee,  broke  out  in 
upper  Auvergne.  It  was  there  that  the  miniature  reli- 
gious war  at  Jales  and  a  widespread  conspiracy  of  the 
nobility  had  been  crushed  as  early  as  1792.  In  1793 
Charrier,  an  emissary  of  the  Count  d'Artois,  organized 
a  new  revolt,  which  for  some  time  met  with  consider- 
able success.  By  May  31st,  however,  the  government 
had  taken  such  precautions  that  the  movement  col- 
lapsed. Two  deputies  were  thereupon  sent  by  the 
Committee  of  Public  Safety  to  establish  the  Terror  in 
the  departments  adjacent  to  the  scene  of  the  revolt. 
All  prisoners  who  had  actually  taken  arms  were  exe- 
cuted, and  hundreds  of  poor  lace-women  were  impris- 
oned and  killed  because  they  wished  to  begin  their 
work  with  prayer  and,  for  some  reason,  refused  to  take 
the  oath  of  fidelity  to  the  Republic. 

Those  cities  which,  like  Lyons,  Marseilles,  and 
Bordeaux,  had  risen,  partly  because  of  a  desire  for  the 
municipal  independence  granted  by  the  Constitution  of 
1 791,  partly  in  behalf  of  the  Girondins,  and  partly 
against  the  rule  of  the  masses,  were  subjected  to  fear- 

'At  the  least  calculation  five  thousand  persons  were  killed  in  Nantes, 
Stephens,  f'rench  Revolution,  II,  392.  Von  Sybel,  French  Revolution,  III, 
257,  says  fifteen  thousand.  For  full  details,  see  Wallon,  La  Tribunal  revo- 
lutionnaire,  V,  326-344;  Jephson,  The  Real  French  Revolutionist. 


240  The  French  Revolution 

ful  punishment.'  October  12,  1793,  the  Convention 
decreed  that  Lyons,  which  had  offered  the  most  obsti- 
nate resistance  to  the  armies  of  the  Republic,  should 
be  annihilated,  and  the  name  of  its  site  changed  to 
Commune-Affranchie.  The  decree  was  never  literally 
obeyed,  for  even  Couthon,  a  member  of  the  Committee, 
was  unwilling  to  do  more  than  destroy  forty  houses. 
But  the  Committee  could  not  let  the  opportunity 
of  establishing  the  Terror  in  the  provinces  pass,  and 
Collot  d'Herbois  himself  was  sent  on  mission  to  the 
city.  Though  by  no  means  the  equal  of  Carrier  in 
brutality,  with  the  aid  of  a  sans-culotie  army  he  insti- 
tuted wholesale  massacres  in  addition  to  the  execu- 
tions by  the  guillotine,  and  nearly  2,000  persons  of  all 
classes  perished  during  five  months.'' 

Marseilles,  because  of  its  importance  as  a  base  of 
military  operations  against  Toulon,  as  well  as  because 
of  its  public  spirit,  suffered  less  severely,  although  406 
persons  were  executed.  Here,  as  in  Lyons  and  the 
Vendue,  it  should  be  recalled,  the  victims  were  those 
who  had  actually  been  in  arms  against  the  Republic. 

It  is  characteristic  of  the  arbitrariness  with  which 
the  deputies  acted  that  the  Terror  at  Bordeaux  was 
greatly  mitigated  during  its  later  days  by  the  fact  that 
Tallien,  a  young  man  of  twenty-five,  came  under  the 
influence  of  a  beautiful  and  tender-hearted  woman  of 
nineteen — a  fact  that  nearly  brought  him  his  death  in 
Paris.     Yet  in  Bordeaux  301  persons  perished. 

*The  hatred  of  these  cities  was  greatly  increased  by  the  fact  that  Marat 
had  been  assassinated  (July  13,  1793)  by  Charlotte  Corday,  a  sympathizer 
with  the  Girondins. 

•It  should  be  added,  however,  in  justice  to  the  administration  of  Collot 
d'Herbois  that  1,684  persons  were  also  acquitted— a  fact  going  far  to  show 
that  the  Terror  in  the  hands  of  anyone  but  a  brute  like  Carrier  did  not 
rest  upon  indiscriminate  massacre. 


The  Republic  Under  the  Terror         241 

But  next  to  the  Vendee,  the  greatest  victim  of  pun- 
ishment inflicted  upon  those  who  revolted  against  the 
Republic  was  Toulon.  There  the  bourgeoisie  had  not 
submitted  readily  to  the  rule  of  the  Jacobins,  and  on 
August  3,  1793,  they  joined  with  the  royalists,  impris- 
oned the  two  deputies  on  mission  in  the  city,  and  sur- 
rendered to  the  English.  Toulon  was  then  held  by 
the  English  and  Spanish  in  behalf  of  the  little  Louis 
XVII.,*  was  strongly  fortified,  and  its  harbor  was 
filled  with  the  allied  fleets.  The  republican  armies 
immediately  besieged  the  city,  but  with  no  result 
until  Napoleon  Bonaparte,  at  that  time  an  obscure 
captain  in  the  artillery,  advised  capturing  a  promon- 
tory commanding  the  harbor.  After  weeks  of  fighting 
this  was  accomplished,  the  fleets  withdrew,  and  Toulon 
fell  (December  19,  1793).  As  in  the  case  of  the  other 
cities,  it  was  delivered  over  to  punishment,  and  by 
January  4,  1794,  as  Barras,  the  deputy  on  mission, 
wrote  the  Committee  of  Public  Safety,  every  one  who 
had  been  employed  in  the  navy  and  the  army  of  the 
rebels,  or  the  naval  or  military  administration,  had 
been  killed.^  As  in  Nantes  and  Lyons,  hundreds  were 
shot  in  batches,  four  hundred  men,  for  instance,  who 
met  the  deputy  Freron  at  the  dockyards,  being  killed 

'The  fate  of  this  little  boy  will  always  remain  in  doubt.  As  far  as  cer- 
tainty goes  we  can  say  only  that  he  was  separated  from  his  mother,  and  put 
in  charge  of  a  brutal  keeper,  Simon.  On  June  8,  1795,  a  child  said  to  be  the 
dauphin  died  in  the  Temple.  There  have  always  been  those,  however,  who 
claimed  that  the  dauijhin  was  carried  to  America.  An  interesting  summary 
of  the  case  is  given  in  Latimer,  My  Scrai>-book  of  the  French  Revolution, 
1408,  seq.  See  also  Louis  Blanc,  Revolution  frangaise,  XH,  ch.  2,  For  the 
accepted  account  of  Simon's  brutalities,  see  Von  Sybel,  IV,  320-328;  and 
Chantelauze,  Louis  XVII. 

'The  horrors  of  war  were  never  better  illustrated  than  at  Toulon  when 
the  English  ships  fired  upon  the  crowds  of  fugitives  who  were  seeking  safety 
in  them,  in  order  to  prevent  overloading.  Four  thousand  of  the  citizens  of 
Toulon  were  crowded  into  the  English  vessels  when  they  finally  left  the  city 
to  its  fate. 


2^2  The  French  Revolution 

on  the  spot.  Fr^ron  is  said  to  have  even  attempted  to 
exterminate  the  entire  population,  but  the  troops 
refused  to  turn  butchers,  and  the  sans-culotte  army 
succeeded  in  massacring  only  about  800  persons. 

These  instances  must  suffice  to  illustrate  the  fearful 
severity  with  which  the  Committee  put  down  and  pun- 
ished revolt.  If  one  looks  at  its  conduct  of  foreign  war, 
its  energy  appears  as  relentless,  although  not  as  brutal. ' 
The  first  six  months  of  1793  had  seen  not  only  the 
revolt  of  the  cities,  but  also  the  repeated  defeat  of  the 
French  armies.  It  was  to  prevent  the  threatened 
destruction  of  France  that  Danton  had  been  eager  to 
solidify  the  power  of  the  great  Committee.  The  levy 
en  masse  had  resulted  in  sending  300,000  new  troops  to 
the  armies,  and  before  the  year  closed  France  had  in 
the  field  fourteen  armies,  numbering  at  least  750,000 
men.  But  discipline,  arms,  provisions,  were  lacking, 
and  the  royalist  officers  were  justly  suspected.  To 
meet  the  first  of  these  difficulties,  Carnot  turned  all 
France  into  a  manufactory  of  weapons  and  organized 
a  tolerably  efficient  commissariat  department.  To 
supply  energy,  the  Convention  had  recourse  to  its 
policy  of  deputies  on  mission.  In  every  army  there 
were  two  or  more  of  these  deputies  with  their  eyes  con- 
stantly on  the  generals,  and  merciless  in  their  demands 
for  victory.  Never  shunning  dangers  themselves, 
they  more  than  once  snatched  victory  from  defeat 
by  leading  the  troops.  The  generals  of  the  raw 
levies  knew  that  they  must  win  if  they  were  to  live. 

'A  good  summary  of  the  military  history  of  this  critical  year  is  given  by 
Mahan,  The  Influence  of  the  Sea  Power  upon  the  French  Revolution  and 
Empire,  I,  ch.  3.  The  best  general  account  is  that  of  Sorel,  f  Europe  et  la 
Revolution  fran^aise^  III,  bk.  iii;  IV,  bk.  i. 


The  Republic  Under  the  Terror        243 

Failure  was  interpreted  by  the  deputies  and  the  Revo- 
lutionary Tribunal  to  mean  treason,  and  not  a  few 
officers,  like  Westermann  and  Custine,  expiated  their 
defeats  on  the  scaffold.^  In  January,  1794,  it  was 
voted  that  a  condemned  general  should  be  executed 
at  the  head  of  his  army.^  And  the  result  of  this  mer- 
ciless patriotism  was  just  what  the  Committee  sought. 
France,  it  is  true,  was  on  the  defensive,  and  the 
Coalition  was  but  half-heartedly  in  the  war.  Austria 
and  Prussia  were  hereditary  foes,  and  as  Mallet  du 
Pau  said  in  1792,  "Europe  had  no  basis  for  a  gen- 
eral resistance."  But  after  all,  the  real  source  of 
the  victories  of  the  Republic  lay  in  the  new  spirit 
breathed  into  the  troops  by  these  deputies.  Pro- 
motion was  certain,  and  out  from  the  ranks  there 
began  to  emerge  the  great  soldiers  of  Napoleon. 
Never  were  armies  more  enthusiastic  for  their  cause,  or, 
thanks  to  Carnot,  better  directed.  The  success  of  the 
systematized  Terror  in  the  autumn  of  1793  was  in  fact 
hardly  short  of  miraculous.  In  June-July,  France  had 
faced  absolute  destruction.  In  September,  1793,  the 
English  were  defeated  at  Hondschoote;  October  15 
and  16,  Jourdan  defeated  the  Austrians  at  Wattignies 
and  opened  up  the  Low  Countries;  in  December, 
Pichegru  defeated  the  Austrians  again,  tumbled  them 
over  the  Rhine,  and  recaptured  Worms  and  Spires. 
During  the  same  time,  it  will  be  remembered,  the 
Vendee  had  been  subdued,  Lyons  and  Toulon  captured. 

^For  obvious  reasons,  this  policy  was  not  as  successful  in  the  navy  as  in 
the  army.  One  cannot  make  men  sailors  by  decrees.  Yet  the  Convention 
attempted  it — e.  g.,  by  voting  death  to  any  captain  who  surrendered  to  a 
force  less  than  double  his,  and,  if  in  charge  of  a  ship-of-the-line,  to  any  force 
unless  his  vessel  was  sinking.     Mahan,  Influence  of  Sea  Power,  etc.,  1,  95n. 

^See  Mortimer-Ternaux,  La  Terreur,  VIII,  247-314. 


244  '^^^  French  Revolution 

The  year  1794  found  France  delivered  from  all  danger 
of  invasion,  and  already  carrying  the  war  into  foreign 
territory. 

In  administering  the  internal  affairs  of  the  Republic 
the  Convention  and  the  Committee  of  Public  Safety 
were  seriously  handicapped  by  the  expenditure  required 
by  the  war,  as  well  as  by  the  almost  complete  destruc- 
tion of  commerce.  From  the  beginning  of  the  Jacobin 
period  the  popular  leaders  had  turned  their  attention 
to  incipient  state-socialism,  in  which  the  rich  were  to 
be  governed  in  the  interest  of  the  poor.^  After  the 
September  massacres  the  personal  property  of  the  vic- 
tims, to  the  value  of  millions,  was  confiscated  by  the 
Commune.  The  Commune  also  stripped  the  Tuileries 
and  the  other  royal  palaces  of  their  gold  and  silver 
plate,  and  coined  that  of  the  churches.  All  export 
of  silver  and  gold  was  forbidden,  and  the  Assembly 
began  to  control  the  grain  trade.  *'The  poor  man 
alone,"  said  Robespierre,  *'is  virtuous,  wise,  and 
fitted  to  govern."  '*The  rich,"  said  Marat,  "have 
so  long  sucked  out  the  marrow  of  the  people  that 
they  are  now  visited  with  a  crushing  retribution." 
The  rich  were  distinctly  held  to  belong  to  a  con- 
quered party,  and  charged  with  "hoping  for  protec- 
tion from  the  Austrians. "  The  economic  policy  of 
the  Convention  grew  distinctly  socialistic  in  its  ten- 
dencies. "To  what  purpose,"  some  one  said  as  early 
as  August  16,  1792,  "is  the  controversy  about  a  repub- 
lic or  a  monarchy?  Create  a  government  which  will 
raise  the  poor  man  above  his  petty  wants,  and  deprive 

*0n  the  inner  condition  of  France  during  the  Terror,  see  Goncourt,  His- 
toire  de  la  Societe  franfaise  Pendant  la  Revolution  ;  Williams,  Sketches  of 
Mannrrs,  etc.,  in  the  French  Republic;  Wallon,  La  Terreur,  1.  168-178; 
H.  341-352. 


The  Republic  Under  the  Terror        44^ 

the  rich  man  of  his  superfluity,  and  you  will  thereby 
restore  a  perfect  equilibrium."  In  fact,  just  as  the 
Constituent  Assembly  destroyed  the  inequalities  aris- 
ing from  the  privileges  of  the  Old  Regime,  the  repre- 
sentatives of  the  people  in  the  Convention  endeavored 
to  destroy  the  inequalities  arising  from  wealth. 
The  Legislative  Assembly  had  confiscated  the  estates 
of  the  emigres^  and  to  help  the  sans-culottes  offered 
them  for  sale  in  lots  of  two  and  three  acres,  to  be  paid 
for  in  small  annual  installments.  A  few  weeks  later 
(September  25-28)  the  Convention  abolished  all  ground 
rents  without  compensation.^  In  May,  a  forced  loan 
of  $200,000,000  was  levied  on  the  rich,  despite  the 
opposition  of  the  Girondins.^  The  assignats,  which 
had  depreciated  to  less  than  a  sixth  of  their  face 
value,  were  ordered  to  be  taken  at  par  under  penalty 
of  death.  Twenty-five  million  francs  were  levied 
upon  the  clergy,  nobility,  and  corporations  of  the 
recently  conquered  territory  of  Belgium.  The  ten- 
dency of  speculators  to  take  advantage  of  the  block- 
ade and  the  great  demand  for  grain,  and  so  raise  its 
price,  was  met  by  the  law  of  the  Maximum  (May  4, 
1793),  which  declared  that  p[rairf  and-^^iaur  t^^pnM  h^ 
SQJd^^Unces  to  be  fixpci,  bj  ^^g^,,^^,}|,  fi^^y^j^l^^  Later 
laws,  with  the  aid  of  elaborate  statistical  tables, 
applied  the  principle  to  all  articles  of  food,  and  offend- 
ers were  punished  with  death.  When  farmers  and 
dealers  refused  to  put  their  goods  on  sale  at  the  legal 

*Von  Sybel  (II,  67)  estimates  the  value  of  the  landed  property  disposed 
of  by  these  decrees  at  $1,200,000,000. 

''See  Mortimer-Ternaux,  La  Terreur,  VIII,  332;  Stourm,  Finances  de 
PAncien  Regime  et  de  la  Revolution^  II,  369-377. 

^The  law  of  Sept.  11,  1793,  fixed  the  rate  at  that  of  1790,  plus  one-third. 


046  The  French  Revolution 

prices,  the  sans-culotte  army  dragged  the  unfortunate 
men  before  the  Revolutionary  Tribunal.  Further 
laws  limited  the  amount  of  bread  one  could  buy,  and 
made  men  and  women  stand  in  line  at  the  bakeries. 
To  prevent  food  being  purchased  before  its  arrival  in 
Paris,  the  mayor  threatened  to  do  nothing  to  prevent 
the  entire  city's  starving.  Thanks  to  an  abundant 
harvest  in  1793,  as  well  as  to  this  legislation,  so  utterly 
in  violation  of  ordinary  economic  laws,  the  prole- 
tariat of  the  cities  was  in  a  measure  furnished  with 
food,  but  the  economic  condition  of  France  remained 
desperate.  Agriculture  suffered,  with  a  million  men 
taken  from  the  fields  to  serve  in  the  army,  food  sold  at 
the  maximum  was  poor  and  scarce,  and  the  punishment 
inflicted  on  the  cities  had  been  the  finishing  blow  to 
commerce  and  manufactures.  The  bourgeois  were  the 
chief  sufferers,  for  the  Convention  cared  for  the  masses. 
Their  needs  were  provided  for  by  assuring  all  good 
sans-culottes  forty  sous  per  day  for  attending  the  assem- 
blies of  their  sections,^  and  by  the  law  establishing  a 
paid  revolutionary  sans-culotte  army.  At  the  same  time, 
in  direct  violation  of  the  grand  watchwords,  "Liberty 
and  Equality,"  which  were  oftenest  in  men's  mouths, 
and  which  the  Commune  of  Paris  had  ordered  every 
householder  to  inscribe  over  his  door,  and  yet,  as  it 
believed,  in  the  interest  of  the  nation  at  large,  the  Com- 
mittee of  Public  Safety  suppressed  freedom  of  thought, 
opened  letters,  instituted  a  secret  police,  destroyed 
the  right  of  trial  by  jury.^     Nor  did  the  radicals  of  the 

*For  instance,  1,200  were  supposed  to  be  in  attendance  every  day  at  each 
section  in  Paris.  As  matter  of  fact  about  300  would  be  present  and  answer 
(or  those  absent. 

'For  reports  of  this  police  during  the  Terror,  see  Schmidt,  Tableaux  de 
la  Revolution  frattfaise,  II,  99-220. 


The  Republic  Under  the  Terror        247 

Convention  stop  here.  Their  passion  for  regenerating 
every  element  in  French  life  drove  them  to  absurd 
extremes.  They  would  have  nothing  that  had  belonged 
to  the  hated  Old  Regime.  Every  man  was  to  be  called 
*'Citizen"  rather  than  "Monsieur."  The  statues  of 
the  kings  in  the  great  church  of  St.  Denis  were  muti- 
lated, and  the  royal  bones  thrown  into  a  ditch  and 
covered  with  quicklime.  For  the  same  reason  the 
calendar  was  changed.  The  year  was  divided  into 
twelve  months,  each  containing  three  weeks  of  ten 
days  {decades)^  every  tenth  day  {decadi)  being  for 
rest;  the  names  of  the  months  were  changed,  and  the 
era  made  to  date  from  the  establishment  of  the  Repub- 
lic, September  21,  1792,' 

Quite  as  revolutionary  was  the  Convention's  treat- 
ment of  religion.  The  philosophy  of  the  day  and  the 
struggle  over  the  non-juring  priests  had  made  the 
Jacobins  fierce  haters  of  Christianity,  and  among 
the  necessities  of  the  regenerate  nation  and  the  new 
epoch  they  were  establishing  was  a  new  religion.  On 
November  7,  1793,  Gobel,  the  Bishop  of  Paris,  and  his 
chief  ecclesiastics  appeared  in  the  Convention  and 
solemnly  abjured  the  Christian  faith.  Their  action 
was  emulated  by  many  of  the  sections  of  Paris.  ^  As  to 
what  the  new  religion  should  be,  the  Commune  and  the 
Committee  of  Public  Safety  differed,  but  until  Robes- 
pierre's brief  supremacy,  the  Commune  was  able  to 

^The  names  of  these  months  were  (beginning  September  22d)  Vende- 
ntiaire  (vintage-month),  Brumaire  (fog-month),  Frimaire  (frost-month) 
Nivose  (snow-month),  Pluviose  (rain-month),  Ventose  (wind-month),  Ger- 
minal (bloom-month),  Floreal  (Hower-montn),  Prairial  (meadow-month). 
The  five  extra  days  were  called  sans-culottides,  and  were  holidays. 

"Gobel  himself  may  possibly,  as  Thiers  asserts,  have  renounced  only 
his  ordination  vows,  but  this  qualification  is  not  to  be  extended  to  his  fol- 
lowers. 


248  The  French  Revolution 

carry  out  its  plans.  As  usual  with  this  party  of  bru- 
tality, they  were  coarse  and  irrational.  On  November 
10,  1793,  the  Convention  established  the  Worship  of 
Reason.  Decked  out  in  red  liberty  caps,  the  deputies 
went  in  a  body  to  the  cathedral  of  Notre  Dame,'  and 
consecrated  it  to  the  Goddess  of  Reason,  whose  repre- 
sentative, a  beautiful  actress,  sat  on  the  altar,  while 
women  of  the  town  danced  the  Carmagnole  in  the  nave. 
Then  the  "service"  in  the  noble  church  degenerated 
into  a  shameless  orgy. 

This  atheistic  debauch  was  approved  neither  by  the 
people  at  large,  nor  the  Convention  as  a  whole,  nor 
even  by  all  the  Jacobin  minority.  It  was  one  result  of 
the  influence  of  the  Commune  of  Paris,  under  the  lead 
of  Hebert.  As  Robespierre  and  the  Committee  of 
Public  Safety  gained  influence,  the  cult  of  Reason  was 
repressed,  and  France  recalled  to  the  better  but  no 
less  revolutionary  and  anti-Christian  worship  of  the 
Supreme  Being.  Even  while  "Reason"  was  being 
worshiped  and  most  churches  were  closed^  through- 
out France,  in  the  few  left  open  thousands  of  faithful 
women  still  worshiped  as  catholic  Christians. 

All  of  this  legislation  must  be  traced  to  a  hatred 
of  the  Old  Regime,  and  much  of  it  to  a  desperate 
attempt  to  maintain  order.  There  were  other  laws  of 
a  far  different  sort  established  by  the  Committee  of 

'Desecration  of  the  churches  by  the  Jacobins  was  common.  At  Lyons, 
during  a  festival  given  in  honor  of  Chalier,  a  donlcey  was  adorned  with  a 
mitre,  made  to  drink  out  of  a  consecrated  cup  with  a  crucifix  and  Bible 
tied  to  his  tail.  Marat's  heart  was  placed  on  a  table  in  the  Cordelier  Club 
as  an  object  of  reverence.  See  Aulard,  Le  Culte  de  la  Raison  et  le  Culte  de 
r Etre  Supreme. 

•The  Jacobin  opposition  to  the  churches  may  be  seen  from  a  request 
of  the  Society  (December  25,  1793)  that  the  Convention  decree  that  in  every 
town  of  four  thousand  inhabitants  there  should  be  built  a  hall  where  edifying 
spectacles  could  be  given  to  help  the  people  "forget  the  tricks  of  the  priests." 
Schmidt,  Tableaux,  etc.,  II,  135,  136. 


The  Republic  Under  the  Terror         249 

Public  Safety  the  value  of  which  one  need  not  be  an 
apologist  of  the  Terror  to  appreciate.  It  is  true,  some 
of  the  proposals  of  Robespierre  and  Saint-Just  were 
absurd,  even  for  admirers  of  Rousseau  and  classical 
antiquity.  A  society  in  which  there  should  be  no 
servants,  and  no  gold  or  silver  vessels;  in  which  boys 
from  five  to  twelve  and  girls  from  five  to  eleven  should 
be  brought  up  in  common  at  the  expense  of  the 
Republic,  and  in  which  no  child  under  sixteen  years 
of  age  should  eat  meat;  in  which  divorce  should  be 
free  to  all;  in  which  friendship  should  be  a  public 
institution,  every  citizen  being  bound  on  attaining 
his  majority  to  publish  the  names  of  his  friends, 
or  having  none,  to  be  banished;  and  in  which  the 
friends  of  a  criminal  should  be  banished — such  a 
society  even  the  Terror  itself  could  hardly  hope  to 
establish.  But  if  these  men  of  blood  were  visionary, 
they  must  also  be  credited  with  having  conceived  many 
of  those  great  social  reforms  that  give  value  to  modern 
life.  While  England  and  America  imprisoned  men  for  ^ 
debt,  the  Convention  abolished  the  practice ;  first  of 
all  sovereign  powers  it  abolished  negro  slavery;  in 
advance  of  even  modern  states,  it  protected  the  wife's 
claim  upon  property  held  in  common  with  the  husband ; 
it  first  of  all  European  governments  outlined  a  system 
of  public  education,  in  which  were  included  common 
schools,*  manual  training  schools,  technical  schools, 
universities,  a  conservatory  of  arts,  museums,  and  a 
polytechnic  institute;  pensions  were  given  the  needy; 

^Children  were  to  be  taught  to  read  by  using  the  Declaration  of  Rights 
and  the  Constitution  of  i793.  Indeed  the  entire  educational  system  was 
centered  about  patriotism.  Boys  were  to  be  trained  as  soldiers,  but,  during 
harvest  time,  were  to  work  in  the  fields.  Sc*  2>uruy,  U Instruction  pub Uque 
et  la  Revolution^  esp.  164-172. 


250 


The  French  Revolution 


and,  finally,  that  Code  which  Napoleon  regarded  as  his 
greatest  contribution  to  posterity,  and  which  has  been 
such  an  agent  in  guaranteeing  political  freedom  upon 
the  Continent  of  Europe,  was  itself  begun  and  to  a 
considerable  degree  completed  by  the  Terrorists. 

It  is  easy  to  say  with  Burke  that  during  the  Terror 
Frenchmen  were  of  two  classes,  executioners  and  vic- 
tims, but  in  the  light  of  these  facts  the  statement  is 
quite  untrue.  The  Terror  was  simply  the  frightful 
basis  of  a  government  looking  toward  an  ideal  state. 
No  government  ever  worked  harder  for  the  good  of 
the  masses,  and  almost  without  exception  the  mem- 
bers of  the  great  Committee  were  neither  peculators 
nor  bribe-takers.  Robespierre  and  his  few  friends 
were  poor  and  absolutely  incorruptible.  Nor  was  the 
Reign  of  Terror  without  its  brighter  side.  The  pris- 
ons were  full  of  *' suspects,"  but  sad  as  was  their  fate, 
a  merely  cursory  reading  of  the  newspapers  of  the 
time,  or  of  the  reports  of  the  secret  police  upon  the 
state  of  Paris,  shows  that  after  the  fear  of  foreign 
invasion  had  passed,  life  went  on  in  Paris  and  in  most 
of  France  much  as  before.  Theaters  were  crowded, 
new  books  were  published  and  reviewed,  salons  were 
held,  cafes  flourished,  the  market-women  were  told  the 
Republic  had  no  need  of  Joans  of  Arc,  and  suppressed. 
Indeed,  for  any  one  except  a  possible  "suspect"  life 
was  probably  no  worse  under  the  absolutism  of  the 
Committee  of  Public  Safety  than  under  that  of  Louis 
XVI.  One  might  almost  say  that  the  masses  of 
France    were     actually     terrorized    into    happiness.^ 

'James  Monroe  was  perhaps  indiscreet  in  his  admiration  of  the  Revolu- 
tion, but  his  observations  were  made  on  the  ground.  Among  other  things, 
he  says,  "1  never  saw  in  the  countenances  of  men  more  apparent  content 
with  the  lot  they  enjoy."    See  Hazen,  American  Opinion,  etc.,  124-126.     * 


The  Republic  Under  the  Terror         251 

Criminals  dared  not  show  themselves.  Men  no  longer 
feared  the  lettre  de  cachet;  all  were  equal  before  the 
law;  provisions  were  no  longer  in  the  hands  of  monop- 
olies; military  promotion  was  open  to  the  peasant  and 
artisan;  lands  could  be  bought  by  the  poorest;  educa- 
tion was  free  to  all. 

Had  the  Committee  of  Public  Safety  come  under 
the  influence  of  a  really  great  man,  France,  during 
1794,  would  almost  certainly  have  gradually  returned 
to  a  normal  condition.  But  here  again  there  was  diffi- 
culty, for  except  Carnot  and  Danton  the  Republic  had 
not  produced  a  man  of  striking  ability,  and  of  these 
two  Danton  was  to  fall  a  victim  to  his  own  inertia 
and  the  brief  supremacy  of  Robespierre,  while  Carnot 
was  to  lay  the  foundations  for  the  military  empire  of 
Napoleon. 


CHAPTER   XVIII 

THE   DICTATORSHIP   OF   ROBESPIERRE* 

I.  The  Struggle  between  the  Commune  and  the  Committee  of 
Public  Safety:  i.  The  Attack  of  Robespierre  upon  the 
H^bertists;  2.  The  Fall  of  the  H^bertists.  II.  The  Fall 
of  the  Dantonists:  i.  Its  Causes;  2.  The  Real  Issue;  3.  The 
Execution  of  the  Dantonists.  III.  The  Dictatorship  of 
Robespierre:  i.  His  Relations  to  the  Committee  of  Public 
Safety;  2.  His  Character;  3.  His  Ideal  Republic;  4.  Ad- 
ministrative Difficulties;  5.  The  Festival  of  the  Supreme 
Being;  6.  The  Increase  of  the  Terror.  IV.  The  Fall  of 
Robespierre:  i.  Opposition  to  His  Plans;  2.  The  Events 
of  the  9th  and  loth  of  Thermidor. 

The  events  which  had  led  to  its  establishment  left 
the  Republic  in  the  control  of  two  sets  of  leaders. 
On  the  one  hand  were  the  Convention  and  its  com- 
mittees, and  on  the  other  was  the  Commune  of  Paris, 
possessed  of  unlimited  power  over  the  proletariat  of 
the  capital,  and  dominated  by  brutal  and  anarchic 
men,  at  the  head  of  whom  was  Hubert.  For  months 
after  the  establishment  of  the  Republic  these  two 
governments  cooperated  alike  for  the  administration 
of  the  state  and  the  destruction  of  the  Girondins;  but 
by  the  autumn  of  1793  Robespierre  began  to  feel  the 
difficulties  of  such  a  union,  and,  after  the  scandalous 
festival  in  honor  of  Reason,  as  a  true  follower  of  Rous- 
seau and  in  the  interest  of  his  own  ideal  Republic, 

»Id  general,  see  Thiers,  French  Revolution,  11,414-458;  III,  1-108;  Von 
Svbel,  French  Revolution,  IV,  3-68;  Taine,  French  Revolution,  III,  145-168; 
Mignet,  French  Revolution  (Bohn  ed.),  234-272. 

252 


The  Dictatorship  of  Robespierre         253 

undertook  to  reduce   the  Commune  to  subjection  to 
the  Committee. 

The  struggle  that  ensued  was  not  without  its  diffi- 
culties, and,  so  popular  was  Hebert,  its  dangers.  It 
began  with  the  ever-ready  charge  of  conspiracy. 
Among  the  papers  of  the  Committee  of  Public  Safety 
is  a  sketch  of  a  report  written  as  early  as  November, 
1793,  in  which  Hubert  is  charged  with  a  plot  to  send 
the  leaders  of  the  Convention  to  the  guillotine,  and 
then,  with  his  friends,  to  take  control  of  the  state. 
The  charge  was  not  more  improbable  than  many  others 
which  had  sent  men  to  the  guillotine,  but  Hebert  was 
at  the  time  too  strong  in  the  Jacobin  Club  to  be  over- 
come. Robespierre's  enmity  was  increased  by  the 
obscenity  and  lawlessness  of  Hebert's  journal,  the 
Plre  Duchesne^  and  by  November  his  influence  in  the 
Committee  was  strong  enough  to  warrant  his  beginning 
the  conflict.  On  the  17th  Robespierre  denounced  the 
Hebertists  as  engaged  "in  the  basest  of  all  crimes, 
counter-revolution  under  the  mask  of  patriotism." 
He  even  succeeded  in  getting  the  alleged  conspiracy 
referred  to  the  Committee  of  General  Security;  but 
strange  as  it  may  seem  to  those  who  have  been  accus- 
tomed to  think  of  him  as  always  a  dictator,  he  judged 
it  unsafe  to  push  the  attack  upon  the  city  party  farther. 
He  therefore  began  to  undermine  Hebert's  influence 
in  the  Club,  by  censuring  his  atheism  and  sacrilegious 
conduct.  It  was  good  policy,  for  the  great  mass  of 
Frenchmen  were  horror-stricken  at  the  blasphemous 
proceedings  of  the  festivals  in  honor  of  Reason. 
Robespierre  still  followed  good  policy  when,  with  the 
aid  of  the  Dantonists,  he  made  use  of  the  journals  to 


254 


The  French  Revolution 


fix  all  the  atrocities  of  the  Terror  and  the  inefficiency 
of  the  generals  in  the  Vendue  upon  Hubert.'  Yet  it 
was  not  until  all  powers,  including  the  Commune,  had 
been  subjected  to  the  two  committees,  and  the  Com- 
mittee of  Public  Safety  had,  in  January,  1794,  won  over 
the  proletariat  of  Paris  by  a  law  condemning  the  prop- 
erty of  suspects  to  be  sold  for  the  benefit  of  the  poor, 
that  with  the  Committee  he  dared  to  attack  its  oppo- 
nents openly.  Carrier,  the  Commune's  creature,  was 
recalled  from  Nantes;  another  of  Hubert's  friends  on 
mission  was  recalled  for  having  spoken  ill  of  Couthon ; 
the  revolutionary  sans-culotte  army,  the  chief  support 
of  the  Commune,  was  dispersed  throughout  the  coun- 
try; and  on  March  4th  one  of  the  H^bertists  was 
arrested.  His  friends  immediately  planned  an  insur- 
rection, but  that  power  which  had  been  theirs  as  late 
as  the  coup  (Titat  of  June  2d  had  now  disappeared 
before  that  of  the  great  Committee.  Anarchic  patriot- 
ism at  last  had  found  its  master.  On  March  13th, 
Hubert  and  a  number  of  his  friends  were  arrested,  and 
eleven  days  later  were  guillotined,  amid  the  exultation 
of  the  masses  themselves. 

After  this  destruction  of  the  party  of  brutality,  there 
was  left  the  single  question.  Did  the  successes  of  the 
Republic  warrant  a  moderation  of  the  Terror  as  a  basis 
of  orderly  government?  Danton,  who  as  much  as  any 
one  man  had  been  the  originator  of  the  absolutism  of 
the  Committee  of  Public  Safety,  believed  the  time  for 
severity  had  all  but  passed,  and,  as  has  appeared,  with 
the  aid  of  Robespierre  and  Camille  Desmoulins,  had 

'Robespierre  himself  corrected  proofs  of  the  first  numbers  of  Desmou- 
lins' new  journal,  Le  vieux  Cordelier,  in  which  "moderation"  and  hostility  to 
Hebert  were  eloquently  urged. 


The  Dictatorship  of  Robespierre         255 

taken  the  preliminary  steps  toward  changing  public 
opinion.  His  policy  had  aroused  the  hopes  of  the 
better  class  of  citizens,  and  the  execution  of  the 
Hebertists  had  been  interpreted  to  mean  a  speedy 
undoing  of  the  fearful  revolutionary  government.  But 
these  hopes  were  abortive.  Unknown  to  Danton,  the 
Committee  of  Public  Safety  had  determined  not  only 
to  maintain  the  Terror,  but  to  kill  him.  Even  while 
the  Hebertists  were  in  prison,  Saint-Just,  Robes- 
pierre's chief  ally,  announced  to  the  Convention  the 
arrest  of  Herault  de  Sechelles,  Danton's  one  friend  on 
the  Committee.  Why  Danton  did  not  defend  him  we 
cannot  say;  it  may  have  been  the  belief  that  he  could 
not  be  condemned ;  it  may  be  that  he  was  overconfi- 
dent as  to  his  own  influence  in  the  state;  but  quite 
as  likely  is  it  that  he  did  not  wish  to  oppose  the  Com- 
mittee. Whether,  indeed,  he  could  have  saved  his 
friend  is  very  doubtful.  Shortly  after  his  second  mar- 
riage, when  the  affairs  of  France  seemed  thoroughly 
prosperous,  he  had  been  absent  for  weeks  from  the 
Assembly,  passing  the  time  at  his  country-house  in 
Arcis.  This  interval  had  seen  the  steady  rise  of 
Robespierre's  influence  in  the  Committee  of  Public 
Safety,  as  well  as  the  complete  establishment  of  sys- 
tematized Terror  by  CoUot-d'Herbois  and  Billaud- 
Varennes.  The  appearance  of  a  reaction  toward 
moderation  was  full  of  danger  for  these  three  men, 
and  they  determined  to  crush  the  party  of  Danton. 
That  the  matter  was  largely  personal  appears  from  the 
charges  against  Danton,  as  well  as  his  contempt  for 
the  precise  Robespierre^  and  his  methods,  however  val- 

'  "Robespierre!"  once  Danton  exclaimed.     "I  will  take  him  with  my 
thumb  and  twirl  him  like  a  top." 


256  The  French  Revolution 

uable  he  may  have  regarded  them  for  certain  stages 
of  the  Revolution.  Attempts  were  made  by  Tallien 
to  bring  about  a  reconciliation  between  the  two  men, 
but  without  success.  At  the  meeting  arranged 
between  them  Danton  is  reported  to  have  said,  "We 
ought  to  crush  the  royalists,  but  not  confound  the 
innocent  with  the  guilty."  "And  who,"  said  Robes- 
pierre, "told  you  a  single  innocent  man  had  lost  his 
life?"  "What,  not  one!"  said  Danton,  ironically. 
Whereupon  Robespierre  left  the  room.  But  even  then 
the  break  was  not  open,  and  Robespierre  drove  and 
ate  with  Danton  after  he  had  signed  the  order  for  his 
arrest. 

The  issue  was  clearly  drawn.  On  the  one  side  was 
a  revolutionist  who  had  favored  Terror  as  the  last 
means  for  saving  the  state  from  foreign  foes,*  but  now 
that  it  had  wrought  its  work,  wished  gradually  to 
reinstate  constitutional  government;  on  the  other  side 
were  a  revolutionist  who,  having  an  ideal  common- 
wealth in  view,  saw  in  the  execution  of  its  possible 
enemies  the  only  method  by  which  it  could  be  estab- 
lished, and  two  revolutionists  without  either  states- 
manship or  ideals,  who  hated  Danton  personally,  and 
who  had  a  well-grounded  fear  for  their  own  safety  in 
case  of  a  reaction.  Since  the  second  group  was  pos- 
sessed of  despotic  power,  it  was  inevitable  that  they 
should  win  unless  Danton  should  organize  revolt.  As 
a  good  patriot  he  was  unwilling  to  do  this.  Neither 
would  he  flee.  "Does  a  man  carry  his  country  on  the 
soles  of  his  shoes?"  he  replied  to  his  friends,  who  saw 

*  "I  did  not  intend  the  Revolutionary  Tribunal,"  Danton  said,  when  in 
prison,  "to  be  a  scourge  of  humanity,  but  only  to  prevent  the  renewal  of  the 
massacres  of  September." 


The  Dictatorship  of  Robespierre         257 

his  danger  and  urged  flight.  And  as  he  waited  inac- 
tive, the  agents  of  the  Committee  of  General  Security 
arrested  him. 

His  trial  and  that  of  his  friends,  among  whom 
was  Camille  Desmoulins,  was  a  matter  of  form.  The 
charges  adduced  by  Saint-Just  were  furnished  him  by 
Robespierre,  and  are  either  ridiculous  or  untrue.^  It 
is  possible  that  Danton's  passionate  defense  would 
have  cleared  him  if  the  Tribunal  had  not  closed  the 
hearing  and  obtained  from  the  Convention  the  power 
to  pass  immediate  sentence.  Then  both  he  and  his 
friends  were  summarily  condemned  (April  5,  1794). 
"Show  my  head  to  the  people,"  said  Danton  on  the 
scaffold  to  Samson,  the  executioner;  "they  do  not  see 
the  like  every  day."  ^ 

The  fall  of  the  Hebertists  and  Dantonists  left  Robes- 
pierre, for  the  first  time,  in  control  of  the  Committee. 
Even  now,  however,  his  influence  was  not  undisputed, 
for  Billaud-Varennes  and  CoUot-d'Herbois  were  jeal- 
ous of  his  preeminence,  and  the  other  members  of 
the  Committee  were  indifferent  to  his  ideals.  Yet  so 
complete  was  his  mastery  over  the  Jacobins  and  the 
cowardly  Swamp  that  for  something  more  than  three 
months  he  was  virtually  dictator  of  France. 

It  has  sometimes  been  said  that  Robespierre  is  one 

'For  instance,  he  was  charged  with  having  been  connected  with  Mira- 
beau  in  the  latter's  connection  with  the  court,  with  having  suggested  that 
Robespierre's  one  female  friend  should  be  married,  with  having  misappro- 
priated funds,  and  with  conspiracy.  Of  the  part  of  Robespierre  in  the  plot 
against  Danton,  there  is  indisputable  evidence  in  his  own  draft  of  the  accu- 
sations brought  by  Saint-Just.  This  is  reprinted  in  Stephens,  Orators  of  the 
French  Revolution,  II,  Appendix.  Hamel.  Hist,  de  Robespierre,  III,  454-486, 
attempts  to  relieve  him  of  all  initiative,  and  even  responsibility,  in  the  matter. 

"A  full  account  of  the  trial  is  in  Beesley,  Danton,  ch.  29,  as  well  as  in 
the  writings  of  Bougeart.  Most  complete  is  Robinet,  Proces  des  Dantonistes. 
See  also  Wallon,  Tribunal  revolutionnaire,  IV,  and  Mortimer-Ternaux,  La 
Terreur,  IX. 


2^8  The  French  Revolution 

of  the  enigmas  of  history,  but  if  one  take  his  point  of 
view,  his  character  and  career  are  simplicity  itself.  A 
mediocre  man  of  narrow,  pedantic  honesty,  a  legalist 
in  morals  and  a  martinet  in  action,  he  was  determined 
to  found  a  well-ordered  republic  upon  virtue;  but  with 
perverted  vision  he  was  a  slave  to  consistency,  a  false 
judge  of  other  men's  motives,  ready  to  kill  any  person 
who  stood  between  him  and  the  achievement  of  his 
Utopia.  He  would  found  a  kingdom  of  heaven  accord- 
ing to  the  method  of  the  Tempter. 

The  process  by  which  France  was  to  be  founded 
anew  upon  virtue,  religion,  and  the  philosophy  of  Rous- 
seau was  outlined  in  a  series  of  the  most  remarkable 
speeches  and  decrees  the  Revolution  produced.  On 
the  one  hand  "conspirators"  were  driven  from  points 
of  danger  by  a  decree  compelling  all  ex-nobles  to 
leave  Paris  and  frontier  towns  within  ten  days;  and  on 
the  other,  the  turbulent  supporters  of  the  defeated 
Commune,  the  sans-culotte  army,  were  disbanded.  The 
centralization  of  France  was  completed  by  removing 
all  the  ministers  and  distributing  their  duties  among 
twelve  commissions  appointed  by  the  Committee  of 
Public  Safety  on  the  nomination  of  Robespierre.  The 
irregular  revolutionary  committees  throughout  the 
nation  were  abolished,  and  their  places  supplied  by 
a  sort  of  police,  in  immediate  communication  with  the 
committees  of  Paris.  The  capital  itself  was  controlled 
by  closing  all  clubs  and  societies  except  the  Jacobins.' 
April  15th,  **in  order  to  strengthen  the  fabric  of  gov- 
ernment, to  rouse  the  servants  of  the  state  from  their 
negligence   and    brutality   and    their    indulgence    to 

*The  Old  Cordeliers  did  exist,  but  was  of  no  significance. 


The  Dictatorship  of  Robespierre         259 

traitors  and  scoundrels,"^  all  revolutionary  tribunals 
in  the  departments  were  dissolved,  and  justice,  like 
government,  was  centralized  in  Paris. 

With  all  powers  thus  within  its  control,  the  Com- 
mittee of  Public  Safety  proceeded  to  ''create  those  civil 
institutions,  which  are  the  only  secure  foundation  of 
the  state. '  *  In  a  speech  of  April  20th,  Billaud- Varennes 
declared  that  "the  state  must  lay  hold  of  every 
human  being  at  his  birth,  and  direct  his  education 
with  a  powerful  hand";  and  the  Convention  decreed 
that  "it  is  necessary  to  refashion  completely  a  people 
one  wishes  to  make  free — to  destroy  its  prejudices, 
alter  its  habits,  limit  its  necessities,  eradicate  its  vices, 
and  purify  its  desires.  Strong  forces,  therefore,  must 
be  set  in  motion  to  develop  the  social  virtues  and  to 
repress  the  passions  of  men."  May  7th  Robespierre 
delivered  a  speech  to  the  Convention  upon  morality 
and  religion  as  the  foundation  of  a  republic.^  In  it 
he  showed  himself  again  the  follower  of  Rousseau. 
"In  the  eyes  of  the  legislator,"  he  declared,  "all  that 
is  beneficial  and  good  in  practice  is  truth.  The  idea 
of  the  Supreme  Being  and  of  the  immortality  of  the 
soul  is  a  continual  recall  to  justice;  it  is  therefore 
social  and  republican."  In  response  to  his  desire,  the 
Convention  decreed  that  the  French  people  acknowl- 
edged the  existence  of  the  Supreme  Being  and  the 
immortality  of  the  soul ;  that  the  worship  most  worthy 
of  the  Supreme  Being  is  the  practice  of  the  duties  of 
man ;  that  the  decadis^  or  revolutionary  Sundays,  should 
be  devoted  to  festivals  in  honor  of  different  days  and 

'Speech  of  Saint-Just  on  that  date. 

''The  speech  is  printed  in  full  in  Stephens,  Orators  of  the  French  Revo- 
lution, II,  390,  seq. 


26o  The  French  Revolution 

virtues  beneficial  to  man;  and  that  there  should  be 
held  a  great  festival  in  honor  of  the  Supreme  Being  on 
June  8th.  The  decrees  were  received  by  the  Jacobins 
with  enthusiasm,  and  the  Committee  of  Public  Safety 
ordered  that  the  words  **To  Reason,"  which  the 
Hebertists  had  caused  to  be  printed  on  the  churches, 
should  be  replaced  by  the  words  "To  the  Supreme 
Being."  At  the  same  time  religious  liberty  was 
granted,  at  least  in  name,  to  all. 

While  thus  Robespierre  was  laying,  as  he  believed, 
the  foundation  of  his  new  commonwealth,  the  actual 
economic  situation  of  France  received  most  careful 
attention.  French  arms,  it  is  true,  had  continued  to  be 
successful,  and  with  the  exception  of  England,  which, 
under  Pitt,  was  passing  through  a  period  of  reaction 
against  all  liberalism,  there  was  no  member  of  the  dis- 
cordant Coalition  that  would  not  have  welcomed  peace.' 
At  home,  however,  the  Committee  found  complications 
inevitably  resulting  from  the  laws  of  the  maximum  and 
the  steady  issue  of  assignats.  Peasants  would  not  sell 
their  grain,  shopkeepers  retired  from  business,  the  coun- 
try towns  diverted  the  food  supply  of  the  capital.  Yet 
it  did  what  it  could ;  the  amount  of  meat  one  could  pur- 
chase was  limited  by  law,  certain  exceptions  were  made 
in  the  application  of  the  maximum^  and  a  beginning 
was  made  of  refunding  the  national  debt  bequeathed 
the  Republic  by  the  monarchy.^  Nature  assisted 
these  efforts  with  an  unusual  harvest,  while,  despite  the 
blockade,  American  vessels  exchanged  grain  for  wine 

»See  Von  Sybel,  French  Revolution,  III,  439-478;  Sorel,  V Europe  et  la 
Rivolution  franfaise,  IV,  liv.  i,  ch.  3,  esp.  91-101. 

"See  Vunrer,  Histoire  de  la  Dette  publtque,  I,  ch.  13.  In  capitalizing:  the 
annuities  at  five  per  cent,  the  Convention  was  obviously  reducing  them,  but 
It  characteristically  left  those  of  aged  people  unchanged. 


The  Dictatorship  of  Robespierre         261 

and  articles  of  manufacture,  and  Switzerland,  which 
maintained  neutrality,  supplied  the  country  constantly 
with  cattle  and  horses. 

On  June  8,  1794,  the  Festival  of  the  Supreme 
Being  was  celebrated,  Robespierre  being  the  president 
of  the  day.  The  Convention  march,ed  in  solemn  pro- 
cession to  the  Garden  of  the  Tuileries,  Robespierre  at 
the  head,  dressed  in  his  very  best,  and  carrying,  like 
all  the  deputies,  flowers  and  stalks  of  grain.  There 
an  amphitheater  had  been  erected  under  the  direction 
of  David,  the  celebrated  painter,  and  in  it  Robespierre 
set  fire  to  three  colossal  figures,  symbolizing  Atheism, 
Discord,  and  Selfishness;  and  from  their  ashes  rose 
the  figure  of  Wisdom.  Then,  after  a  speech  by 
Robespierre,  the  Convention  marched  to  the  Champs  de 
Mars,  where  a  great  crowd  solemnly  swore  allegiance 
to  the  Republic  and  homage  to  the  Supreme  Being. 

How  genuine  all  this  sudden  piety  of  the  Parisians 
may  have  been  each  will  determine  for  himself,  but 
there  can  be  no  doubt  as  to  the  sincerity  of  Robes- 
pierre. Yet  his  sincerity  did  not  give  him  wisdom. 
Had  he  been  a  really  great  man,  he  might  have  fore- 
stalled Bonaparte,  but  as  it  was  he  remained  a  slave 
to  the  spirit  of  the  Terror,  and  could  think  of  no 
agent  of  enforcing  his  plans  except  the  guillotine. 
Had  not  Rousseau  excluded  atheists  from  pity?  That 
he  planned  to  maintain  the  Terror  indefinitely,  or  even 
at  all  after  his  opponents  had  been  removed,  is  improb- 
able. We  have  it  on  good  authority  that  after  he  had 
removed  the  factions  he  was  forced  to  fight,  he  meant 
to  return  to  a  system  of  order  and  moderation.'     But 

^Napoleon's  quotation  of  the  words  of  Cambacerfes. 


.......rnAiTU 


nr  rMirnBtlll 


262  The  French  Revolution 

even  with  this  concession,  his  method  can  only  be 
condemned.  On  the  22d  of  Prairial  (June  8th), 
the  very  day  of  the  Festival  of  the  Supreme  Being, 
he  caused  Couthon  to  propose  to  the  Convention  the 
most  terrible  law  ever  put  into  force  among  civilized 
peoples.  The  Revolutionary  Tribunal  was  to  be 
divided  into  four  sections,  one  to  sit  every  day ;  it  was 
to  punish  with  death  all  "enemies  of  the  people,"  and 
the  provisions  of  the  law  made  this  phrase  include 
almost  every  conceivable  wrongdoer  or  suspect.  The 
two  committees,  the  Convention,  the  deputies  on  mis- 
sion, and  Fouquier-Tinville,  the  public  accuser,  could 
bring  persons  before  the  Tribunal.  If  the  prosecution 
could  adduce  either  material  or  moral  proofs,  no  wit- 
nesses were  to  be  examined;  and  no  counsel  was 
allowed  the  accused.^ 

It  was  with  difficulty  that  this  hideous  and  unneces- 
sary law  was  passed.  Even  in  the  Committee  itself 
there  was  opposition,  Robespierre  and  his  two  friends 
being  opposed  by  Billaud-Varennes,  Collot-d'Herbois, 
and  Carnot.  His  constant  insistence  upon  morality 
and  religion  became  a  subject  of  ridicule.^  His  vague 
suggestions  as  to  the  need  of  still  further  purification 
of  the  Convention  aroused  the  fears  of  men  like 
Tallien  and  Barras,  who  knew  well  that  their  careers 
as  deputies  on  mission  would  not  bear  careful  scrutiny 
from  the  point  of  view  of  either  terroism,  honesty,  or 
morality.^     In  the  Committee  he  could  count  certainly 

'The  results  of  this  law  are  to  be  seen  in  the  fact  that  in  the  seven  weeks 
it  was  in  operation,  1,376  persons  were  guillotined  in  Paris. 

'"You  begin  to  bore  me  with  your  Supreme  Being,"  said  Billaud-Va- 
rennes. 

'Robespierre  fell  into  a  serious  mistake  when  he  refused  to  exempt 
members  of  the  Convention  from  the  law  of  the  22d  Prairial,  and  at  the 
same  time  refused  to  name  the  members  he  would  attack.  Every  membe^ 
of  the  Convention  feared  for  himself. 


The  Dictatorship  of  Robespierre        263 

on  only  two  supporters,  the  fanatical  young  Saint- Just 
and  the  paralytic  Couthon.  In  the  Convention  men 
were  already  turning  against  him,  remarking  his 
pride  in  the  Festival  of  the  Supreme  Being.  The 
people,  too,  although  they  dared  not  attack  him,  were 
evidently  hating  the  new  regime,  in  which  patriotic  vir- 
tues were  to  be  chosen  as  a  less  evil  than  death ;  and 
among  the  proletariat,  whom  he  sought  to  benefit,  but 
who  now,  as  well  as  the  wealthy,  were  being  drawn 
into  the  net  set  for  suspects  by  the  terrible  law  of 
Prairial,  there  was  a  suspicious  lack  of  enthusiasm  with 
occasional  outbursts  of  pity. 

All  this  hostility  had  opportunity  to  develop,  for 
toward  the  end  of  June  Robespierre  withdrew  from 
the  Committee  and  went  into  retirement,  according  to 
his  apologists  because  of  his  despair  at  the  growing 
influence  of  unscrupulous  men  like  Barras,  Tallien, 
and  Billaud-Varennes,  none  of  whom  shared  his  ideals 
for  a  morally  regenerate  France.'  Whatever  truth 
there  may  be  in  this  supposition — and  improbable  as  it 
appears,  it  is  not  absolutely  impossible — during  his 
weeks  of  absence  a  conspiracy  was  formed  against  him 
and  his  two  friends  in  the  Committee,  under  the  lead  of 
Barras,  Tallien,  and  Billaud-Varennes.  The  Commit- 
tee of  Public  Safety  was  thus  divided,  but  the  Jacobins 
and  the  newly  reorganized  Commune  were  wholly  with 
Robespierre.  Had  he  appealed  to  the  mob  upon  his 
return  to  Paris,  he  might  have  saved  himself;  but  this, 
despite  the  entreaties  of  his  friends,  he  would  not  do. 
Thoroughly  alive  to  his  danger,  however,  on  July  26th 
he  attempted  to  make  the  Convention  pass  a  decree 

*Some  writers  think  it  was  for  the  purpose  of  courting  a  young  woman. 


264  The  French  Revolution 

against  his  enemies,  but  was  met  by  an  open  attack. 
He  lost  his  self-control,  and  left  the  Convention. 
Even  then  he  might  have  crushed  his  opponents  by 
an  appeal  to  insurrection,  but  this  he  still  refused  to 
make.  On  the  9th  Thermidor  (July  27th)  he  again 
appeared  in  the  Convention,  and  attempted  to  speak, 
but  was  silenced  with  shouts  of  "Down  with  the 
tyrant!"^  His  strength  and  voice  failed  him.  '*The 
blood  of  Danton  chokes  him!"  shouted  one  of  the 
conspirators.  In  desperation  the  Convention  voted  to 
arrest  him,  his  brother,  Saint-Just,  Couthon,  and  Le 
Bas.  "Liberty  triumphs!"  shouted  Billaud-Varennes. 
"The  Republic  is  dead,"  retorted  Robespierre,  "and 
rascals  triumph!"  And  the  one  saying  was  as  true  as 
the  other. 

In  the  mean  time  Robespierre's  supporters  in  the 
Commune  had  made  ready  the  military  forces  of  the 
capital  for  an  insurrection  in  his  defense.  He  and 
the  other  Terrorists  were  released  from  prison,  and 
the  troops  of  the  Commune  surrounded  the  Conven- 
tion. It  was  then  that  as  a  last  resort  the  Convention 
outlawed  Robespierre,  his  friends,  and  the  Commune. 

The  crisis  came  during  the  night  of  July  27th.  The 
city  troops  filled  the  great  square  of  the  Town  Hall, 
and  had  the  sections  but  risen,  Robespierre's  power 
would  have  been  supreme.  But  the  National  Guards 
would  not  join  readily  in  the  insurrection,  and  Robes- 
pierre himself  refused  to  sanction  a  popular  uprising. 
"Then,"  said  Couthon,  "nothing  remains  for  us  but 
to  die."     "You  have  said  it,"  replied  Robespierre. 

'In  a  speech  on  July  22d,  Saint-Just  had  distinctly  said  that  a  dictatorship 
on  the  part  of  Robespierre  was  necessary. 


The  Dictatorship  of  Robespierre         265 

The  crowd  dispersed,  and  the  troops  of  the  Convention 
surrounded  the  city  hall.  Then,  too  late,  Robespierre 
relented.  The  call  to  arms  was  given  him  for  signature. 
He  had  written  "Ro — "  when  one  of  the  soldiers  of 
the  Convention  burst  into  the  room  and  shot  him  in 
the  jaw.^  Two  of  his  friends  leaped  from  the  windows, 
one  shot  himself,  Couthon  tried  to  stab  himself.  All 
were  arrested.^ 

In  the  building  of  the  Archives  of  Paris  there  is 
a  table  taken  during  the  Revolution  from  the  Tuileries 
for  use  in  the  City  Hall.  Upon  this  table  the  wretched 
Robespierre  lay  for  hours,  exposed  to  every  insult,  but 
uttering  no  word,  waiting  his  death.  On  the  evening 
of  the  loth  Thermidor  (July  28th)  he  and  twenty-one 
of  his  friends  were  hurried  without  trial  as  outlaws  to 
the  guillotine.  Tradition  has  preserved  the  words  of 
an  unknown  old  man,  who,  as  Robespierre  was  stretched 
out  upon  the  plank  of  the  guillotine,  shouted:  "Yes, 
Robespierre;  there  is  a  Supreme  Being. "^ 

And  with  the  fall  of  that  shattered  head  all  France 
breathed  freer.  For  if  the  dream  of  a  republic 
founded  upon  morality  and  religion  had  passed,  so 
also  (as  it  proved)  had  passed  the  Terror. 

*The  fac-simile  of  this  document,  with  the  drops  of  blood  after  the  two 
letters,  is  given  in  the  Memoirs  of  Barras.  It  should  be  added  that  there 
have  been  efforts  made  to  prove  that  Robespierre  shot  himself  in  an  attempt 
at  suicide. 

'•The  most  satisfactory  account  of  the  9th  and  loth  of  Thermidor  is  in 
Wallon,  Tribunal  revolutionnaire,  V,  199-255.  See  also  Blanc,  La  Revolu- 
tion fran^aise,  XI,  ch.  2;  Hericault,  La  Revolution  de  Thermidor;  Quinet, 
La  Revolution  franfaise,  bk.  xix. 

'There  is  also  an  alleged  epitaph  for  Robespierre: 

Passant y  qui  que  tu  sois,  ne  pieure  Pas  mon  sort : 
Sije  vivais,  tu  serais  mart. 


CHAPTER    XIX 

THE   RETURN   TO   CONSTITUTIONAL   GOVERNMENT* 

I.  The  Reaction  from  the  Terror:  i.  Parties  after  Thermidor; 
2.  The  Legislative  Reaction.  H.  Problems  before  the 
Victors:  i.  The  Economic  Crisis;  2.  Peace  with  Foreign 
Nations.  III.  The  Fall  of  the  Mountain:  i.  Anti-Jacobm- 
ism;  2.  The  Revolts  of  ist  Prairial.  IV.  The  Crushing 
of  Royalist  Rebellion:  i.  "The  White  Terror";  2.  The 
Quiberon  Expedition.  V.  The  Constitution  of  1795:  i.  Its 
Provisions;  2.  The  Two  Decrees;  3.  The  13th  Vend^- 
miaire.  VI.  The  Return  to  Constitutional  Government: 
I.  Last  Struggles  of  the  Jacobin  Element;  2.  The  Inau- 
guration of  the  Directory  and  Councils.  VII.  Tendency 
toward  Militarism  at  the  End  of  the  Revolution. 

After  the  fall  of  Robespierre  the  Revolution  began 
to  retrace  its  course,  both  as  regards  the  spirit  and  the 
legislation  of  the  Convention.  Three  parties  came  to 
be  clearly  distinguished — the  still  considerable  group 
of  the  Mountain ;  the  Thermidorians,''  most  of  whom 
had  been  Dantonists;  and  the  great  body  of  the 
Swamp  or  Center,^  now  daring  to  become  Moderates. 
In  the  overthrow  of  Robespierre  the  Thermidorians 
and  the  Moderates  had  been  aided  by  the  enemies  of 
the  "dictator"  on  the  Committee  of  Public  Safety,  and 

*In  general,  see  Von  Sybel,  French  Revolution,  IV,  bk.  xii;  Carlyle, 
French  Revolution,  III,  bk.  vii;  Taine,  French  Revolution,  III,  bk.  ix;  Thiers, 
French  Revolution,  III,  234-245;  Mienet,  French  Revolution,  chs.  10,  11. 
See  also  the  novels  of  Gras,  The  White  Terror,  and  Erckmann-Chatrian, 
Citizen  Bonaparte. 

'This  term  is  used  to  indicate  those  who  like  Barras  and  Talllen  had 
been  most  active  on  the  9th  and  loth  of  Thermidor. 

'The  spirit  of  this  body  during  the  Terror  had  been  despicably  cowardly. 
"What  did  you  do  during  those  years?"  Si6yes  was  once  asked.  "I  lived," 
was  the  reply. 

266 


Return  to  Constitutional  Government      267 

for  a  few  weeks  this  anomalous  partnership  was  main- 
tained. In  consequence  legislation  began  to  retrace 
its  course.  Wholesale  execution  of  suspects  ceased, 
and  although  trials  and  condemnations  continued  for 
several  months,  the  terrible  law  of  the  2 2d  Prairial, 
denying  counsel  to  prisoners  brought  before  the  Revo- 
lutionary Tribunal,  was  repealed,  and  the  number  of 
executions  was  small.  ^  The  irresponsible  rule  of  the 
Committee  of  Public  Safety  was  ended  by  the  provi- 
sion that  one-fourth  of  its  members  should  be  renewed 
every  month,  and  at  least  one  month  should  pass 
before  a  member  was  reelected.  This  reversion  to 
the  decentralized  government  of  the  early  years  of  the 
Revolution  is  further  seen  in  the  fact  that  most  of  the 
powers  exercised  by  the  Committee  of  Public  Safety 
were  distributed  between  sixteen  independent  and 
coordinate  committees.  To  weaken  radicalism,  the 
revolutionary  committees  which  had  played  so  large 
a  role  in  the  Terror  throughout  the  departments  were 
reduced  to  one  in  each  district  and  to  one  meeting 
each  decade.  A  bourgeois  reaction  from  the  socialistic 
methods  of  the  Terror  showed  itself  in  the  decree  that 
sans-culottes  were  no  longer  to  be  paid  for  attendance 
upon  the  assemblies  of  the  sections.  Less  attention 
also  was  paid  to  feeding  the  proletariat.  The  Revo- 
lutionary Tribunal  was  reorganized,  with  a  jury  and 
a  proper  provision  for  the  defense  of  the  accused, 
while  the  former  public  prosecutor,  Fouquier-Tinville, 
was  arrested,  tried,  and  after  some  months,  together 

^From  July  31st  to  September  i6th,  of  290  accused,  only  14  were  con- 
demned; from  September  17th  to  October  21st,  of  312  accused,  24  were  con- 
demned; the  next  month  only  5  out  of  236,  and  at  last,  January  20  to  Feb- 
ruary 18,  179S  (Pluviose,  year  III),  of  30  accused,  none  were  condemned. 


268  The  French  Revolution 

with  fifteen  of  his  former  jurors,  was  executed.  The 
Commune  of  Paris  was  replaced  by  two  commissions, 
and  the  Jacobin  Club  was  ordered  to  purge  itself  of 
the  friends  of  Robespierre,  to  cease  corresponding 
with  other  societies  in  its  own  name,  and  at  last 
(November  12,  1 794)  was  suppressed  and  its  hall  closed. 
The  restriction  upon  the  freedom  of  the  press  was,  at 
least  in  large  part,  removed ;  amnesty  was  offered  the 
Vendeanswho  should  lay  down  their  arms;  the  secrecy 
of  letters  was  declared  inviolable;  the  observance  of 
the  Catholic  faith  was  again  sanctioned,  and  the 
worst  elements  of  the  law  of  the  maximum  were 
repealed.  In  the  meantime  the  prisons  were  emptied 
of  all  those  who  had  been  illegally  arrested.  The 
agents  of  the  Terror  were  not  at  once  attacked,  but 
as  the  reaction  developed  the  eighty-three  outlaws  of 
the  Commune,  Fouquier-Tinville  and  his  jurors,  and 
Carrier,  author  of  the  horrors  at  Nantes,  were  tried 
and  executed.  Those  members  of  the  Convention 
who,  in  October,  1793,  had  dared  to  protest  against 
the  coup  d'etat  of  May  31- June  2,  were  reinstated,  and 
at  last  the  wave  of  anti-Terror  legislation  reached  the 
proscribed  Girondins  themselves,  and  such  of  them  as 
still  survived  were  readmitted  into  the  Convention, 
there  to  join  the  leaders  of  the  new  movement  toward 
constitutional  government.' 

It  was  inevitable  that  such  a  reversal  of  a  previously 
unquestioned  policy  should  sometimes  go  to  excess. 
On  the  one  side  the  hitherto  oppressed  bourgeois  and 
"aristocrats"    suddenly   began   to    play    the    master. 

'On  the  Thermidorian  legislation,  see  Sorel,  U Europe  et  la  Revolution 
franfaise,  IV,  122-132. 


Return  to  Constitutional  Government      269 

The  sections  of  Paris  purified  their  assemblies  of  sans- 
culottes^ and  their  young  men  —  the  jeunesse  doree,  or 
"Gilded  Youth, " — armed  themselves  with  clubs,  organ- 
ized in  bands,  and  patrolled  the  city,  abusing  the  Jaco- 
bins. Revolutionary  songs  were  tabooed.  Styles  of 
clothing  changed,  and  with  a  levity  Robespierre  could 
not  efface,  men  and  women  dressed  their  hair  as  had 
those  prepared  for  the  guillotine,^  and  to  cap  the 
climax,  gave  balls  ^  la  victime^  to  which  no  one  was 
invited  who  had  not  lost  a  relative  during  the  Terror. 
It  is  not  strange  that  such  enthusiasm  should  attract 
many  persons  of  royalist  sympathies,  and  that  there 
should  appear  no  small  prospect  that  moderation 
might  give  way  to  a  royalist  reaction.  Here  was 
cause  enough  for  a  struggle  between  the  Mountain  and 
the  Moderates.  The  Convention  itself  endeavored 
to  forestall  the  suspicion  of  royalist  sympathies,  but 
the  Mountain  not  only  chafed  under  the  new  necessity 
of  acting  in  self-defense,  but  suspected  its  opponents 
of  hostility  to  the  Republic.  Nor  is  its  suspicion 
difficult  to  understand.  So  far  as  the  Terror  went, 
the  Convention  had  been  quite  as  guilty  as  it,  and  the 
Thermidorian  party  was  by  no  means  incorruptible, 
for  many  of  its  members  were  already  growing  rich 
in  ways  that  would  hardly  bear  close  scrutiny.^  The 
royalist  color  given  the  Thermidorian  reaction,  the 
Mountain  rightly  judged,  did  not  express  a  genuinely 
national  feeling.     The  people  of  France  as  a  whole 

*That  is,  the  men  cut  theirs  short  or  turned  it  up  behind,  and  the  women 
plaited  theirs  and  fastened  it  with  combs  high  on  the  top  of  their  heads.  It 
IS  interesting  to  observe  how  so  many  conventionalities  of  fashion,  like  these 
and  long  trousers,  date  from  this  period. 

"Gouverneur  Morris  seems  to  have  suspected  the  Terrorists  of  the  same 
wrongdoing  as  early  as  August,  i793-  See  Morris,  Diary  and  Utters  of 
Gouverneur  Morris ^  II,  5i« 


270  The  French  Revolution 

wanted  nothing  but  a  republic.  Mallet  du  Pan  in 
November,  1794,  expressed  the  matter  clearly,  "The 
mass  of  people  has  begun  to  forget  it  ever  had  a  king. " 
In  the  Vendue  itself  it  began  to  be  apparent  that 
if  the  priests  were  allowed  to  minister  to  the  peasants, 
the  causes  of  the  revolt  would  utterly  disappear. 

Nor  were  these  the  Mountain's  only  grounds  of  com- 
plaint. The  undoing  of  the  centralized  government 
of  the  Committee  of  Public  Safety  had  brought  France 
into  the  most  serious  economic  embarrassment.  The 
enforcement  of  the  maximum  had  been  abandoned, 
with  the  immediate  result  of  encouraging  stock  job- 
bing and  every  sort  of  speculation.  The  assignats 
were  depreciating  with  frightful  rapidity,  and  the 
price  of  food  rose  enormously.^  With  a  million  men 
withdrawn  from  agriculture,  famine  was  actually  at 
the  door  of  nearly  every  town  in  the  nation.  From 
all  over  France  there  went  up  the  cry  of  hunger.  The 
crops  in  many  of  the  departments  failed.  Around 
Dieppe  the  entire  population  of  villages  ate  herbs  and 
bran.  In  Picardy  men  and  women  scoured  the  woods 
for  mushrooms  and  berries.  In  the  towns  the  misery 
was  more  intense  The  poor  were  given  a  daily 
allowance  of  gram,  but  this  was  sometimes  as  small 
as  three  ounces  of  wheat  for  each  person  every  eight 
days.  Even  in  cities  like  Amiens  or  Troyes  the  poor 
were  allowed  only  a  half-pound  of  flour  each  day. 
And  this  misery,  so  appalling  to  men  who,  though  but 
demagogues,  had  championed  the  masses,  existed 
notwithstanding  the  unparalleled  agrarian  revolution 

*In  July,  1705,  a  pound  of  meat  was  worth  36  francs.  Bread  was  selling 
in  January,  1790,  at  50  francs  a  pound  and  meat  at  60. 


Return  to  Constitutional  Government      271 

which  had  enabled  the  peasants  to  buy  up  the  lands  of 
church  and  nobles  confiscated  by  the  state.  It  would 
have  been  strange  indeed  if  the  Mountain  had  not  seen 
in  it  an  argument  against  the  moderate  regime. 

But  probably  the  most  fundamental  difference 
between  the  various  parties  of  the  Convention,  now 
that  the  Terror  was  outgrown,  concerned  the  estab- 
lishment of  peace  with  Europe,  of  giving  France 
a  constitution,  and  thus  of  closing  the  Revolution. 

The  campaign  of  1794  had  been  wonderfully  suc- 
cessful for  the  Republic.  It  was  not  only  that  the 
raw  levies  had  become  veterans,  and  that  the  unre- 
stricted opportunity  for  promotion  had  brought  to  the 
front  able  generals;  the  leader  of  the  allied  forces 
had  displayed  amazing  stupidity,  and  the  huge  Coali- 
tion was  giving  unmistakable  signs  of  approaching 
dissolution.  In  January,  1795,  Holland  was  con- 
quered,^ and  a  few  weeks  later  erected  into  a  republic, 
which  (May  i6th)  formed  an  alliance  with  France. 
This  success  of  the  French,  as  well  as  its  own  financial 
straits,  its  jealousy  of  Austria,  and  its  interest  in  the 
partition  of  Poland,  always  a  hindrance  to  war  with 
France,  led  Prussia  to  enter  upon  negotiations  for 
peace  (January  22,  1795).  On  April  14th  the  Peace  of 
Basle  was  definitively  ratified  by  the  Convention.^  By 
it  the  Republic  was  assured  the  possession  of  the 
Prussian  territory  on  the  left  of  the  Rhine  until  a  gen- 
eral peace,  and  northern  Germany  was  made  neutral. 
By  secret  clauses  France  was  ceded  all  its  conquests 

Ht  was  in  this  campaign  that  (January  20th)  a  force  of  French  cavalry 
captured  a  Dutch  fleet  which  had  been  frozen  fast  in  the  ice. 

»0n  the  diplomatic  process,  see  Sorel,  V Europe  et  la  Revolution  fraw 
(aise,  IV,  bk.  i,  ch.  5,  and  bk.  ii;  Von  Sybel,  French  Revolution,  bk.  xi. 


2'j'i  The  French  Revolution 

on  the  left  bank  of  the  Rhine  upon  condition  of  com- 
pensating Prussia;  for  which  act  means  were  to  be 
gained  by  secularizing  the  church  property  within  the 
conquered  territory.  In  July  Spain  also  made  peace, 
ceding  France  Spanish  San  Domingo  in  return  for  all 
places  taken  by  the  French. 

Advantageous  to  the  Republic  as  was  the  Peace  of 
Basle,  the  months  devoted  to  the  necessary  negoti- 
ations had  shown  the  deep-seated  hostility  of  the 
Mountain  to  any  measure  looking  toward  the  increased 
power  of  the  Moderates.  Both  the  Thermidorians 
and  the  Mounlain  knew  that  their  supremacy  was  pos- 
sible only  as  long  as  war  continued,  and  it  was  inevi- 
table that  there  should  again  arise  a  struggle  between 
the  Mountain  and  the  Moderates  for  the  mastery  of 
the  Republic.  But  now  the  issue  was  to  be  reversed. 
Moderation,  not  Terror,  was  to  be  the  order  of  the 
dayi._None  the  less.  Jacobinism  died  hard.  The 
Mountain  had  been  deprived  of  Robespierre;  it  had 
been  forced  to  see  Dantonists  and  Girondins  return 
to  the  Convention;  it  had  been  unable  to  punish 
the  belligerent  Gilded  Youth,  even  when  they  threw 
the  body  of  Marat  into  the  sewer;  it  had  seen  its 
clubs  suppressed,  and  one  of  its  most  outspoken  mem- 
bers in  the  Convention  imprisoned  for  several  days 
for  abusive  speech ;  it  had  been  unable  to  prevent  the 
treaties  of  peace.  The  readmission  of  the  Girondins 
was  an  explicit  condemnation  of  all  its  actions  since 
June  2,  1793,  and  none  of  its  members  could  hope  to 
escape  punishment.  As  first  fruits  of  this  future,  Col- 
lot-d'Herbois,  Billaud-Varennes,  Barere,  and  Vadier 


Return  to  Constitutional  Government      273 

were  all  arrested,  brought  to  trial,  and  sentenced  to 
transportation. 

Unaccustomed  to  such  defeats,  the  Mountain 
turned  again  to  the  masses  of  Paris,  and  organized 
insurrection.  With  utter  disregard  of  its  former  sus- 
pension of  constitutional  government,  its  war-cry  was 
''Bread  and  the  Constitution  of  1793!"  Again  crowds 
of  frenzied  women  tried  to  intimidate  the  legislators, 
and  on  April  i,  1795  (12th  Germinal,  year  III),  a  mob 
forced  its  way  into  the  Convention.  For  four  hours  it 
howled  and  threatened  violence,  until  at  last  the 
wealthier  sections  of  Paris  armed  themselves,  and  under 
the  direction  of  General  Pichegru,  came  to  the  relief 
of  the  Convention.  Then  the  mob  fled.  As  a  result 
of  this  riot  several  members  of  the  Mountain  were 
arrested  on  the  explicit  charge  of  having  been  Terror- 
ists, and  a  little  later  the  occurrence  or  danger  of 
riots  in  Amiens,  Rouen,  Marseilles,  and  Toulon  led 
to  the  arrest  of  still  others  of  its  members. 

The  struggle  at  last  resolved  itself  to  this:  Could 
the  Convention  draw  up  a  constitution  that  should 
incorporate  the  new  moderatism  and  the  experience  of 
the  six  years  of  revolution,  or  would  the  Jacobins  be 
able  to  intimidate  it  into  enforcing  the  radically  demo- 
cratic Constitution  of  1793? 

The  issue  was  joined  May  20,  1795  (ist  Prairial). 
The  Jacobins,  after  careful  preparation,  again  sum- 
moned the  people  to  insurrection,  declared  the  end 
of  the  revolutionary  epoch,  the  dismissal  and  arrest 
of  the  members  of  the  existing  government,  the  estab- 
lishment of  the  Constitution  of   1793,  and  summoned 


274  T^^  French  Revolution 

a  new  Assembly  to  meet  within  a  month.  A  desperate 
mob  again  filled  the  Convention  Hall.  So  unexpected 
was  the  uprising  that  the  Convention  was  totally 
unprepared;  but  it  dared  oppose  its  foes  even  after 
they  had  killed  the  deputy  F^raud.  Boissy  d'Anglas, 
the  president  of  the  day,  respectfully  saluted  the 
bleeding  head  of  his  colleague,  but  though  pikes  were 
at  his  breast,  refused  to  put  .the  motions  demanded 
by  the  mob.  The  Mountain  thereupon  passed  them 
all,  and  France  was  apparently  again  in  the  hands  of 
the  Jacobins.  But  it  was  only  for  a  few  hours.  Again 
the  wealthier  sections  armed,  and  their  troops  with 
fixed  bayonets  cleared  the  hall  of  its  murderous  invad- 
ers. Order  was  restored,  the  votes  were  annulled, 
and  fourteen  deputies  who  had  aided  the  rioters  were 
arrested.  The  next  day  an  attempt  was  made  to 
renew  the  disorder,  but  it  proved  unsuccessful.  Six 
members  of  the  Mountain  who  had  been  leaders  of  the 
uprising  were  arrested,  brought  before  a  military  com- 
mfssion,  and  condemned  to  death.  They  all  stabbed 
themselves  with  the  same  dagger,  three  fatally.  The 
others  were  promptly  guillotined.  Then,  in  order  to 
prevent  a  repetition  of  such  disturbances,  the  Conven- 
tion authorized  General  Menou  to  use  troops  in  dis- 
arming the  Faubourg  Saint  Antoine.  NoU^ontent 
with  this  drastic  measure,  it  put  him  in  command  of  a 
permanent  guard  for  itself. 

While  thus  the  Convention  was  crushing  that  aggres- 
sive minority  which  had  been  so  long  its  master,  it 
was  forced  also  to  repress  royalist  uprisings  and  con- 
spiracies. The  middle  course  between  Jacobinism 
and  royalist  reaction  was  not  easy  to  hold,  and  with 


Return  to  Constitutional  Government      275 

the  executive  powers  divided  among  sixteen  commit- 
tees strong  government  was  difficult.  Every  day 
pointed  to  the  army  as  the  one  certain  means  of  main- 
taining order.  How  insufficient  was  ordinary  muni- 
cipal government  in  dealing  with  violence,  appeared 
in  the  "White  Terror,"  or  anti- Jacobin  violence,  that 
swept  over  the  Republic,  and  particularly  southern 
France.  The  vengeance  of  the  French  middle  class  is 
always  as  hideous  as  the  uprising  of  the  proletariat, 
and  in  1795  the  royalists,  the  "aristocrats,"  and  the 
bourgeois  inflicted  on  the  Jacobins  the  same  horrors 
they  had  themselves  suffered  at  the  hands  of  the  sans- 
culottes. Anti-Jacobin  clubs  were  formed  with  the 
names  of  "Companies  of  Jehu,"  "Companies  of  the 
Sun,"  and  the  massacres  of  September,  1792,  were 
repeated,  with  characters  reversed.  In  Marseilles 
several  hundred  former  Terrorists  had  been  arrested 
and  lodged  in  prison.  On  June  5,  1795,  many  of  them 
were  massacred,^  and  then  the  prison  was  set  on  fire, 
many  of  the  prisoners  being  burnt  alive.  Several  of 
the  murderers  were  arrested,  but  released  without 
even  so  much  as  a  trial.  In  Tarascon  Jacobins  were 
thrown  from  the  top  of  a  tower  upon  the  rocks  of  the 
river-bank;  in  Lyons,  Avignon,  in  fact  in  twenty 
departments,  similar  acts  of  vengeance  were  perpe- 
trated. 

Such  disorders  were  interpreted  by  royalists  and 
emigres  to  indicate  a  desire  on  the  part  of  France 
for  a  counter-revolution  against  the  Republic.  Not 
only  did  Bourbon  cliques  begin  to  reassert  themselves, 
but  in   the  Vendee   the  emigres  attempted  civil  war. 

»The  total  number  of  those  butchered  was  about  200. 


276  The  French  Revolution 

The  efforts  of  the  Convention  to  pacify  either  Brittany 
or  the  Vendue  had  not  been  successful,  and  discontent 
was  growing  rapidly  among  their  peasantry.  A  heroic 
Vendean,  Charette,  who  had  maintained  a  small  royal- 
ist army,  was  promised  aid  by  England  and  the 
brothers  of  Louis  XVI.  An  expedition  composed  of 
about  6,000  men,  including  French  prisoners  of  war 
and  i^^^oo ^migr is ^  was  fitted  out  in  England,  and  landed 
on  a  sandy  point  in  Quiberon  Bay,  prepared  to  advance 
upon  France.  Had  the  Bourbon  princes  promised 
the  nation  the  reforms  accomplished  by  the  Constitu- 
ent Assembly,  it  is  not  impossible  that  they  might  have 
found  themselves  at  the  head  of  a  formidable  uprising; 
but  they  had  not  learned  the  lessons  later  to  be  taught 
by  the  Napoleonic  era,  and  they  denounced  the  Consti- 
tutionalists as  disguised  traitors,  more  worthy  of  the 
rack  and  gallows  than  the  Jacobins.  At  the  same 
time  that  they  thus  alienated  the  liberal  party,  their 
agents  succeeded  in  antagonizing  the  leaders  of  the 
Vendue,  and  through  jealousy  of  the  English  and  their 
share  in  the  expedition,  in  preventing  any  royalist 
movements  in  Brittany.  The  leaders  of  the  expedition 
itself  could  not  act  in  harmony,  and  blunders  were 
made  at  every  step.  Under  these  conditions  the 
Quiberon  invasion  could  be  nothing  but  a  fiasco. 
The  republican  forces  under  General  Hoche  swept  all 
before  them,  and  shut  up  the  entire  invading  army, 
as  well  as  large  numbers  of  Vendean  peasants,  in  an 
indefensible  fort  erected  on  the  sandy  point.  When 
this  was  taken  by  a  night  attack,  the  imigris,  with  the 
Vendean  women  and  children^  xe'  -eated  to  the  extreme 
end  of  the  point,  and   there  attempted  to  embark  in 


Return  to  Constitutional  Government      277 

the  English  ships.  But  again  their  effort  failed,  and 
the  wretched  survivors  were  forced  to  surrender. 
The  women  and  children  were  released,  but  a  court- 
martial  found  six  hundred  of  the  prisoners  guilty  of 
treason,  and  they  were  shot. 

A  short  time  later,  the  Count  d'Artois  made 
a  second  attempt  at  invasion,  but  was  too  much  of 
a  coward  to  face  the  republican  troops,  and  finally 
returned  to  England,  leaving  Charette  to  his  fate.* 

Thus  relieved  from  royalist  anarchy  and  royalist 
invasion,  the  Convention  turned  to  the  duty  for  which 
it  had  originally  been  summoned,  the  making  of  a  con- 
stitution. Even  while  the  imigris  were  at  Quiberon 
a  committee,  of  which  Boissy  d'Anglas  was  chairman, 
reported  the  first  draft  of  such  a  document,  in  which, 
after  a  review  of  the  work  of  the  Constituent  Assem- 
bly and  the  Terror,  it  insisted  that  the  legislature 
should  consist  of  two  chambers,  and  that  the  legisla- 
tive and  executive  branches  should  be  independent. 
These  two  principles  were  embodied  in  the  Constitu- 
tion of  1795.  The  legislature  was  to  consist  of  two 
Councils,  that  of  theHFTve"  Hundred  and''" that' of  the 
Ancients,  each  to  be  elected  by  electors  chosen  by  the 
peopler  An  executive  body,  known  as  the  Directory^ 
was  to  be  established,  consisting  of  five  members,  one 
of  whom  should  retire  every  year,  to  be  chosen  by 
the  Ancients  from  a  list  submitted  by  the  Council  of 
the  Five  Hundred.  The  influence  of  the  bourgeoisie 
was  felt  in  the  provision  that  all  officials  should  be 
property-holders,  and  that,  although  the  suffrage  was 

V  .   .-- v^— -•   ■ 

ft- 

'He  was  captured  and  s'  /March  29, 1796.  The  Vendue  was  not  finally 
pacified  till  August,  1796. 


278  The  French  Revolution 

declared  a  natural  right,  all  persons  .should  be 
excluded  from  voting  who  did  not  pay  some  kind  of 
tax.  Freedom  of  labor,  commerce,  religion,  and  the 
press  was  established ;  all  political  clubs  were  prohib- 
ited ;  the  imigris  were  forever  outlawed,  and  the  title 
of  confiscated  lands  was  guaranteed  to  their  new 
holders.  The  Directory  was  to  have  full  control  over 
military  affairs  and  the  various  agents  of  the  govern- 
ment. It  had,  however,  no  power  of  initiating 
measures,  or  of  dissolving  the  Councils.^  As  the 
legislature  had  full  control  of  pecuniary  grants,  it  is 
obvious  that  a  deadlock  was  always  possible,  and  that 
it  could  be  broken  only  by  a  coup  d'etat  on  the  part  of 
one  or  the  other  branches  of  the  government.^ 

In  many  ways  the  new  constitution  was  evidently 
a  return  to  the  ideas  of  the  Constituent  Convention, 
and  in  so  far  favored  the  royalist  reaction.^  The 
Convention,  however,  was  farthest  possible  from  plan- 
ning a  reestablishment  of  the  monarchy,  and  remem- 
bering its  own  history  under  the  Terror,  was  deter- 
mined that  the  government  about  to  be  established 
under  the  new  constitution  should  abandon  neither 
republicanism  nor  the  Terrorist  delegates  to  the  mercy 
of  those  who  had  injuries  to  avenge.  The  Quiberon 
affair  and  the  boldness  of  the  royalists  of  Paris  made 

'When  this  was  proposed,  it  was  silenced  by  the  cry,  "That  is  the  veto; 
that  is  monarchyl" 

'It  is  worth  noticing  that  this  Constitution  of  1795  was  preceded  by  a 
Declaration  of  the  Rights  and  Duties  of  the  Man  and  the  Citizen. 

'It  should  be  remembered  that  the  royalists  were  of  two  sorts,  those 
favoring  the  Old  Regime  and  those  favoring  the  constitutional  monarchy  of 
the  Constitution  of  1791.    The  first  group  included  the  remains  of  the  old 

Erivileged  orders,  while  the  second  embraced  many  of  the  bourgeois.    As 
as  already  been  said,  the  absolute  royalists  hated  the  constitutional  royal- 
ists as  cordially  as  they  hated  the  Jacobins. 


Return  to  Constitutional  Government      279 

it  necessary  to  provide  for  a  continuance  in  power  of 
those  who  had  founded  and  saved  the  Republic.  So 
unpopular  was  the  Convention^  that  if  the  country- 
were  granted  absolutely  free  election,  it  was  almost 
certain  that  reactionists  would  be  elected  to  both  the 
new  Councils.  With  considerable  sagacity,  therefore, 
the  Convention  turned  to  the  constitutional  proviso 
for  the  renewal  of  but  a  third  of  each  Council,  and 
decreed  that  two-thirds  of  the  new  legislature  should 
be  chosen  by  the  electors  from  its  own  membership, 
and  that  the  Convention  should  fill  any  vacancies  due 
to  the  election  of  the  same  man  by  different  depart- 
ments. To  intimidate  the  now  insolent  bourgeoisie^  it 
was  also  decreed  that  the  Constitution  should  be  laid 
before  the  armies  for  acceptance.  At  the  same  time, 
in  order  to  insure  order  at  the  elections,  large  bodies 
of  troops  were  assembled  near  Paris. 

These  two  decrees  roused  the  wealthier  sections  of 
Paris  to  fury.  If  they  were  accepted  by  the  people, 
for  a  year  at  least  the  Republic  would  be  controlled 
by  a  legislature  the  majority  of  whose  members  had 
maintained  the  Terror.  The  approach  of  the  troops 
added  to  the  suspicion  already  aroused  by  the  actions 
of  the  Convention,  and  section  after  section  appeared 
before  it  to  protest  against  the  decrees.  When  their 
protests  were  unheeded,  the  bourgeois  and  reactionists 
determined  to  crush  the  Convention  with  the  weapons 
of  the  mob.  The  issue  became  increasingly  one  to 
be  determined  only  by  military  force.  It  was  not 
merely  a  local  crisis.     All  over  France  the  agents  of 

*Even  their  official  sash  became  an  object  of  derision  when  the  deputies 
were  on  the  street. 


a8o  The  French  Revolution 

the  Convention  were  insulted  and  abused,*  and  the 
republican  General  Pichegru  began  to  enter  into  nego- 
tiations with  the  Prince  of  Cond6. 

Yet,  when  the  Constitution  and  the  decrees  were 
submitted  to  the  nation,  despite  all  the  efforts  of  Paris, 
they  were  accepted  by  large  majorities.^  The 
announcement  of  this  fact  caused  even  wilder  agita- 
tion in  Paris,  and  by  October  4th  forty-four  of  the 
forty-eight  sections  of  the  capital  were  in  open  revolt 
and  organizing  armed  resistance.  In  a  short  time  an 
army  of  nearly  30,000  men  of  the  National  Guard, 
mostly  bourgeois^  were  ready  to  march  upon  the  Con- 
vention. The  government,  in  its  turn,  brought  in  the 
regiments  it  had  concentrated  near  the  city,  and  pre- 
pared for  actual  battle.  Its  general,  Menou,  however, 
proved  to  be  in  sympathy  with  the  insurgents,  and 
was  removed.  Had  the  National  Guard  advanced 
promptly,  it  might  have  crushed  the  Convention,  but 
it  preferred  to  spend  the  night  of  October  4th  (12th 
Vend^miaire)  in  shouting  and  torchlight  processions. 
The  Convention  meanwhile  remained  in  permanent 
session,  and  among  other  steps  for  its  defense 
appointed  Barras  commander-in-chief  of  its  forces. 
Barras  himself,  to  judge  from  his  Memoirs^  was  one  of 
the  greatest  braggarts  and  liars  of  his  day,  but  now, 
as  at  Thermidor,  he  was  able  to  bring  the  necessary 
thing  to  pass.  He  had  under  him  a  force  of  per- 
haps 5,000  men,  but  no  second  in  command.     Imme- 

*At  Chartres  the  market  women  forced  the  Convention's  representative 
to  lower  the  price  of  bread  and  then  led  him  around  the  town  on  an  ass, 
they  the  while  shouting,  ^'Vive  le  rot.'* 

'Again  but  a  small  part  of  the  citizens  voted.  The  Constitution  was 
accepted,  914,000  votes  to  44.000,  and  the  decrees,  167,000  to  96,000. 


Return  to  Constitutional  Government     281 

diately  he  turned  to  one  of  his  friends,  then  a  clerk  in 
the  Topographical  office,  Napoleon  Bonaparte,  a  young 
Corsican  of  twenty-five,  a  former  friend  of  Robes- 
pierre, who  had  distinguished  himself  in  the  siege 
of  Toulon,  but  who  had  been  discharged  from  the 
army  on  account  of  his  refusal  to  accept  a  transfer- 
ence from  the  artillery  to  the  infantry.  Bonaparte's 
professional  sensitiveness  had  brought  him  to  narrow 
circumstances,  and  had  it  not  been  for  his  brother 
Joseph's  marriage  with  an  heiress  he  would  have  been 
obliged  to  sell  his  books.  Until  his  appointment  to 
the  Topographical  office  he  seems  to  have  lived  a  poor 
sort  of  life,  and  despite  his  numerous  plans,  to  have 
grown  half  desperate  from  discouragements,  but  even 
more  from  the  fatalism  that  marked  his  life.  On 
August  12,  1795,  he  wrote  his  brother  Joseph:  "I  can 
meet  fate  and  destiny  with  courage,  and  unless 
I  change  I  shall  very  soon  not  move  out  of  the  way 
when  a  carriage  passes."  Certainly  he  would  have 
been  counted  a  wild  prophet  who  should  have  prophe- 
sied great  things  for  this  penniless  clerk  and  discharged 
general,  dependent  upon  a  sister-in-law's  bounty! 

Yet  destiny,  as  Bonaparte  believed,  was  before  and 
with  him.  He  was  well  known  to  Barras,  who  had 
discovered  in  his  face  a  likeness  to  Marat,  to  whom 
he  had  been  warmly  attached,  and  remembering 
Toulon,  and  in  despair  of  finding  a  man  equally  trust- 
worthy and  energetic,  he  intrusted  to  him  the  pro- 
tection of  the  Convention.  Bonaparte  took  half  an 
hour  for  calculation,  and  with  the  true  adventurer's 
instinct  accepted  the  command  (Vend^miaire  13). 
Not  relying  merely  upon  infantry,  but  true  to  his  pro- 


282  The  French  Revolution 

fession — to  the  end  of  his  days  Bonaparte  was  a 
major  in  the  artillery — he  gathered  all  the  cannon 
that  were  at  hand  in  Paris  and  planted  them  about  the 
building  in  which  the  Convention  was  assembled.  In 
the  morning  the  National  Guard  began  to  gather  for 
its  attack,  but  found  itself  confronted  by  Bonaparte's 
troops.  For  hours  the  two  forces  stood  facing  each 
other  not  fifty  feet  apart,  neither  willing  to  begin 
the  struggle.  At  last,  at  half-past  four  in  the  after- 
noon, the  leader  of  the  insurrectionists  gave  the  signal 
for  attack.  Instantly  Bonaparte  ordered  his  guns 
loaded  with  grape-shot,  to  be  fired  upon  the  crowd. 
Their  execution  was  deadly;  the  members  of  the 
National  Guard,  crowded  into  the  streets  and  quays, 
were  cut  down  in  great  numbers.  No  man  could  stand 
that  "whiff  of  grape-shot,"  and  although  they  were 
brave,  and  were  led  by  brave  men,  the  insurrectionists 
after  one  last  stand  on  the  steps  of  St.  Roch,  broke 
ranks  and  fled  to  their  homes.  The  army  had  saved 
the  government. 

For  a  moment  there  was  the  danger  of  a  new  reign 
of  Jacobinism.  The  struggle  of  Vendemiaire  had 
again  brought  together  the  Thermidorians  and  the  sur- 
vivors of  the  Mountain,  all  of  whom  feared  the  pres- 
ence of  new  deputies,  sure  to  be  elected  from  their 
enemies.  When  the  elections  began,  a  week  after  the 
revolt,  their  fears  were  justified.  The  polls  were 
largely  attended,  and  not  only  were  those  members  of 
the  Convention  elected  who  were  least  implicated  in 
the  Terror,  but  all  of  the  new  deputies  were  moderate, 
and  even  royalist  in  sympathy  The  Thermidorians 
and  the  Mountain  declared  that   such  a  legislature 


Return  to  Constitutional  Government      283 

would  mean  nothing  less  than  an  undoing  of  the 
Republic.  They  determined  to  suspend  the  Constitu- 
tion, prevent  the  meeting  of  the  Councils,  and  main- 
tain the  Convention,  together  with  a  commission  of  five 
of  their  number  as  a  sort  of  executive.  But  the  tide  of 
Jacobinism  had  ebbed.  The  Convention  was  not  to 
be  coerced,  and  the  bare  exposure  of  the  scheme  by 
Thibaudeau  was  enough  to  defeat  it  utterly.  On 
October  26th  the  Convention  peacefully  dissolved,  after 
having  declared  a  general  amnesty  fdr  all  political 
offenses  committed  since  1791,  the  rebels  of  the  13th 
Vendemiaire  alone  being  excepted. 

The  next  day  the  new  Councils  assembled.  Their 
first  duty  was  to  elect  the  105  members  who  were  still 
needed  to  complete  the  Council  of  the  Five  Hundred. 
In  general,  those  chosen  were  unimportant  persons, 
committed  neither  to  the  Moderates  nor  to  the  Moun- 
tain. Next,  the  Council  of  the  Ancients,  all  of  whom 
were  required  to  be  forty-eight  years  of  age  and  mar- 
ried, was  chosen  by  lot  from  the  mass  of  delegates. 
Then  came  that  most  vital  matter,  the  choice  of  the 
Directors.  All  the  delegates  knew  that  each  new 
election  would  be  certain  to  return  an  increasing  num- 
ber of  anti-Terrorists.  Accordingly,  to  insure  a  con- 
tinuity of  government,  and  above  all,  to  provide  against 
a  counter-revolution  in  case  the  Councils  should 
become  royalist — a  condition  that  was  actually  to 
arise — the  Council  of  the  Five  Hundred,  by  carefully 
selecting  its  list  of  candidates,  brought  about  the  elec- 
tion of  five  Directors,  each  of  whom  had  voted  for 
the  death  of  Louis  XVI. 

Thus  assured  of  at  least  a  temporary  continuance 


284  The  French  Revolution 

of  the  republican  regime,  France,  after  a  revolutionary 
interregnum  of  three  years,  began  again  to  live  under 
a  constitution.  It  was  not  yet  free  from  dangers. 
Within  were  a  people  oppressed  by  hunger,  poverty, 
and  disorder;  a  religious  freedom  that  was  hardly 
more  than  a  name ;  a  national  debt  already  of  appalling 
size;  a  hopelessly  depreciated  currency,  and  a  com- 
merce all  but  destroyed;  a  growing  reaction  toward 
constitutional  monarchy,  and  in  the  Vendue  the 
remains  of  actual  civil  war.  Without  were  a  war 
against  England  and  Austria,  and  a  swarm  of  emigres 
plotting  invasion  and  vengeance.  But  with  these  dan- 
gers there  were  also  resources.  The  struggle  for 
rights  had  not  been  in  vain.  France  was  not  only  far 
better  unified  and  organized  than  in  1789,  it  was  more 
obedient  to  law  and  more  intelligently  interested  in 
government.  The  peasants  were  already  beginning 
to  develop  their  newly  acquired  lands ;  the  peace  with 
Prussia  and  Spain,  as  well  as  the  alliance  with  Holland, 
would  soon  revive  commerce ;  the  armies  on  the  fron- 
tiers were  the  pledge  of  new  victories. 

With  the  armies,  indeed,  lay  the  future  of  the 
nation.  As  absolutism  had  given  way  to  constitutional 
monarchy,  and  constitutional  monarchy  had  been  fol- 
lowed by  a  republic  at  once  revolutionary  and  war- 
ring, so  the  Republic  by  its  victories  was  about  to 
become  something  still  different.  What  its  future 
should  be  the  Convention  itself  had  irrevocably  fixed 
by  its  decision  that  war  was  to  continue  until  Europe 
recognized  the  Rhine  as  the  boundary  of  the  Repub- 
lic. For  out  from  this  war  was  to  come,  directly  and 
rapidly,  the  military  empire  of  Napoleon  Bonaparte. 


Return  to  Constitutional  Government      285 

Strictly  speaking,  however,  the  Empire  formed  no 
stage  of  the  Revolution.  To  trace  its  rise  would  be 
to  watch  the  development  of  no  new  popular  spirit, 
such  as  that  which  led  to  the  calling  of  the  States 
General  and  the  destruction  of  the  Old  Regime.  It 
would  rather  be  to  record  a  succession  of  changes  in 
the  form  of  government  accomplished  with  the  assent, 
but  not  the  assistance  of  the  nation.  A  coup  d'itat  is 
jiotaj'evolution,  and  the  rise  of  Bonaparte  was  due' to 
thearmY>_and  not  to  a  new  idealism.  Yet  he  was  none 
the  less  a  legitimate  product  of  the  Revolution,  and 
without  him  the  work  of  the  six  years  we  have  described 
would  very  largely  have  disappeared.  His  marvelous 
success  was  something  more  than  that  of  a  mere 
adventurer  or  soldier.  Wherever  his  influence  was 
felt  the  spirit  of  the  Revolution  was  also  felt.  That 
neither  he  nor  the  Revolution  gave  continental  Europe 
the  constitutional  liberty  of  America  may  well  be 
admitted;  but  wherever  his  influence  extended,  feudal 
privileges,  absolute  monarchy,  abuses  of  many  sorts, 
vanished,  and  in  their  places  came,  though  in  varying 
degree,  political  equality,  and  constitutional  govern- 
ment. And  in  these  blessings  enjoyed  so  generally 
by  western  Europe,  as  well  as  in  the  acknowledged 
right  of  every  man  to  life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of 
happiness,  we  must  see  the  inestimable  blood-bought 
results  of  the  years  1789-1795.  So  true  is  it  that  the 
French  Revolution  by  perpetuating  the  results  of  a 
century's  political  and  intellectual  evolution  began  a 
new  epoch  in  European  politics  and  thought. 


CHRONOLOGICAL   SUMMARY 

1789  May     5.    Opening  of  the  States  Generals. 
The  Third  Estate  constitute,  itself  the  Nationa 

Assembly. 
Th'e'Oath-tjnhe  Tennis  Court. 
The  Royal  Session. 
The  union  of  the  three  orders  in  the 
Constituent  Assembly. 
Attempted  coup  d'dtat  of  the  court. 
Fall  of  the  Bastille. 
End  of  the  feudal  system. 
The  King  brought  to  Paris. 

1790  June    19.    Abolition  of  nobiity. 
Festival  of  the  Confederation. 
Creation  of  80,000,000  assignats. 

[791     April    2.    Death  of  Mirabeau. 


May 

5- 

June 

17- 

June 

20. 

June 

23. 

June 

27. 

July 

2. 

July 

14. 

Aug. 

4. 

Oct.  3 

.6. 

June 

19. 

July 

14. 

Sept. 

29. 

April 

2. 

June2i-2E 

July 

6. 

July 

17. 

July 

25. 

Aug. 

27. 

Sept. 

13- 

Oct. 

I. 

Ma 

Oct. 

i^  A 
30. 

Nov. 

17. 

Feb. 

7. 

Mch. 

30. 

April 

20. 

Appeal  by  Emperor  Leopold  to  sovereigns  of 

Europe  in  behalf  of  Louis. 
The  Massacre  of  the  Champs  de  Mars. 
Treaty  between  Prussia  and  Austria  against 

France. 
Treaty  of  Pilnit*. 
Constitution  accepted  by  Louis. 
First  sitting  of  the 
National  Legislative  Assembly. 
Massacres  at  Avignon. 
Potion  the  Girondin  elected  mayor  of  Paris. 
1792    Feb.     7.    Treaty  between  Prussia  and  Austria  to  quell 

the  disturbances  in  France. 
Property  of  emigrants  confiscated. 
Declaration  of  war  against  Austria. 
287 


June 

26. 

July 

11. 

Aug. 

10. 

Aug. 

II. 

Aug. 

13. 

Sept. 

2-6. 

Sept. 

20. 

Sept. 

21. 

Sept. 

22. 

Nov. 

19 

288  The  French  Revolution 

June     8.    Louis  vetoes  bill  providing  for  military  camp 

at  Paris. 
June  12,  i3.Girondin  ministry  dismissed. 
June   20.    The  mob  at  the  Tuileries. 

First  Coalition  formed  against  France. 
The  country  decreed  to  be  in  danger. 
The  sack  of  the  Tuileries. 
Louis  suspended. 

The  royal  family  imprisoned  in  the  Temple. 
Massacres  in  the  prisons  at  Paris. 
"  Cannonade  at  Valmy." 
End  of  the  Legislative  Assembly;  opening 
of  the 

National  Convention. 
Declaration  of  the  Republic. 
Beginning  of  the  Republican  calendar. 
The  Convention  promises  aid  to  all  nations 
desiring  to  overthrow  their  kings. 
1793    Jan.  15-20.  Trial  and  execution  of  Louis  XVL 

Feb.      I.    The  Convention  declares  war  against  England 

and  Holland. 
Mch.    7.    War  declared  against  Spain. 
Mch.    9.    The  great  Coalition  formed  against  France. 
Mch.  10,  II.  Institution  of  the  Revolutionary  Tribunal. 
•  Mch.  II.    Rebellion  of  the  Vendue. 
Mch.  25.    Institution  of  the  Committee  of  Public  Safety. 
April    I.    Defection  of  Dumouriez. 

First  law  of  the  Maximum. 

3°*  i  Downfall  of  the  Girondins. 

French  ports  blockaded. 

Marat  assassinated. 

Constitution  of  1793  accepted  (but  never  en- 
forced). 

The  levy  en  masse. 

Law  against  "  Suspects." 

The  government  declared  revolutionary  till  a 
peace. 


May 
May 
June 

4. 

30- 
2. 

June 

8. 

July 
Aug. 

13. 
10. 

Aug. 
Sept. 
Oct. 

23. 
17. 
10. 

Oct. 

i6. 

Oct. 

31. 

Nov. 

10. 

Dec. 

4- 

Jan. 

21. 

Feb. 

4. 

Mch. 

24. 

Apr. 

5. 

Chronological  Summary  289 

Execution  of  Marie  Antoinette. 
Execution  of  the  Girondins. 
Institution  of  the  *'  Worship'of  Reason." 
Organization  of  the  revolutionary  government. 

1794  Jan.    21.    Terror  at  its  height  in  N^tes. 
Slavery  abolished  in  French  colonies. 
Execution  of  the  H^bertists. 
Execution  of    Danton  and    the  Dantonists. 
The  supremacy  of  Robespierre. 

June     8.    Festival  of  the  Supreme  Being. 

Law  forbiddjng  counsel  to  persons   brought 
before  the  Revolutionary  Tribunal. 
July  26-28.  Fall  and  execution  of  Robespierre. 
Aug.    12.    The  Revolutionary  Tribunal  reorganized. 
Aug.  24.    Powers  of  the  Committee  of   Public  Safety 

lessened. 
Oct.    12.    Clubs  forbidden  to  correspond  in  their  own 
names. 
The  Jacobin  Cltib  suspended. 
Amnesty  offered  the  Vendue. 
Girondins  readmitted  to  the  Convention. 
The  Maximum  repealed. 

1795  Jan.     19.    Conquest  of  Holland. 
Treaty  of  peace  with  Prussia. 
••  The  White  Terror." 
The  mob  attacks  the  Convention. 
The  Catholic  religion  reinstated. 
Death  of  Louis  XVH. 
Fall  of  the  Mountain. 
Emigres  surrender  at  Quiberon. 
Treaty  of  peace  with  Spain.  y 
The  Constitution  of  the  Year  III  adopted. 
All  conquered  countries  on  left  of  the  Rhine 

incorporated  in  France. 
Insurrection  of  Vend^miaire  13. 
End  of  the  Convention. 
France  again  under  a  Constitution. 


Nov. 

12. 

Dec. 

2. 

Dec. 

8. 

Dec. 

24. 

Jan. 

19. 

April 

5. 

April  24. 

May 

I. 

May 

30. 

June 

8. 

June 

17. 

July 

21. 

July 

22. 

Aug. 

22. 

Oct. 

I. 

Oct. 

5- 

Oct. 

26. 

Oct. 

28. 

INDEX 


+ 


PAGE 

Absolutism,  development  of 2-4 

D' Ajguillon,  on  the  4th  of  August  139 

D'Alembert,  "resurrection"  of, 
49;  and  Encyclopedia 61,  seq. 

American  Revolution,  influence 
of 100 

Army,  under  the  Old  Regime,  27, 
seq.;  reorganized  by  Con- 
stituent Assembly,  163;  offi- 
cers untrue  to  the  Assembly  169 

Artisans,  condition  of,  under  Old 
Regime,  36;  and  4th  of  August  142 

Abbots 43 

Artois,  Count  de,  102;  at  head  of 
camp  of  emigres,  190;  at- 
tempts at  civil  war 239,  277 

Assembly.  See  Notables,  Con- 
stituent Assembly,  Legisla- 
tive Assembly, 

Assignats.  origin  of,  160;  new  is- 
sue of,  161;  depreciation  of, 
226,  245,270;    new  issues....  261 

Atheism,  under  Old  Regime,  48; 
of  Encyclopedists,  62;  Vol- 
taire and,  85;  of  Hebertists.  247 

August  4,  1789,  events  of . . . .  139,  seq. 

August  10,  1792,  events  of.  ..199,  seq. 

Austria,  forms  secret  agreement 
with  other  European  powers, 
176;  declaration  of  war 
against 192 

Auvergne,  revolt  of 239 

Avignon,  revolution  at 174 

Baboeuf 49 

Bailly,  Mayor  of  Paris,  135;  and 
the  massacre  of  the  Champs 

de  Mars 180 

Bankruptcy,  proposals  of 112 

Barbaroux,  Girondin,  199,  224,  225,  n. 

Barere 229,  272 

Barnave,  representative..  151,  178,  n. 
Barras,  on  mission,    241;    fears 
of,  262;  and  Thermidor,  263- 

265;  and  Vendemiaire 280 

Bastille,  fall  of,  128,  seq.;  sketch 
of  its  history,  130;  impor- 
tance of  its  fall 134 

Berthier,  murder  of 134 

Besanjon,  Parlement  of,  calls 
for  States  General 103 


PAGB 

Billaud-Varennes,  on  the  Com- 
mittee of  Public  Safety,  229, 
230;  opposed  to  Danton,  255; 
on  the  duties  of  the  Republic, 
259;  opposed  to  Robespierre, 
262;  and  Thermidor,  263-265; 
sentenced  to  transportation.  272 

Bishops,  skepticism  ot 46 

Brissot,  Girondin,  188;  opposed 
by  Danton,  190;  opinion  as 

to  treaties 191 

Blackstone,  on  France 3 

Boissy  d'Anglas,  on  i  Prairial, 

274;  and  Constitution  of  1795.  277 
Bonaparte,  Napoleon,  on  August 
10,  1792,  203;  at  Toulon,  2av, 
on  Vendemiaire,  281;  and  the 

Revolution 285 

Bordeaux,  terror  at 240 

Bourgeoisie,  origin,  24;  hated  by 
peasants  and  artisans,  25, 
173.  179;  growing  importance 
of,  26,  34;  skepticism  of,  48; 
credulity  of,  48,  seq.;  share  in 
early  revolution,  141;  retire 
from  clubs  and  politics,  172. 

S'3;    powers   after   Thermi- 
or 267,  277 

Breze,  master  of  ceremonies 122 

Brienne,  Lom^nie  de,  urges  per- 
secution, 47;  minister,  107, 
seq.;  plans  coup  d'etat,  109; 

dismissed no 

Brigands 11 

Broglie,  and  the  attempted  coup 

d'etat,  128;  flight  of 136 

Brunswick,  Duke  of,  manifesto 

by 198 

Buzot  in  Constituent  Assembly, 
151;  attempts  revolt,  224; 
death  of 225,  n. 

Cagliostro 49i  seq. 

Calas  and  Voltaire 47 

Calendar,  revolutionary 247 

Calonne,  administration  of,  104, 

seq.;    financial    policy,    104; 

summons    the  Assembly  of 

Notables,  io5;  dismissed....  106 

Cal vinists  and  political  oflSce  —    47 

Capitaineries ao 


291 


292 


The  French  Revolution 


t 


PAGE 

Carmagnole,  the ao5 

Carnot,  on    the   Committee   of 
Public  Safety,  229,  230,  242; 
opposed  to  Robespierre.  ...  262 
Carrier,  deputy,  at  Nantes,  237, 
seg.j  recalled.  254;  executed  268 

Caussidiere,  at  Bastille^ 131 

Cazatte 19 

Chambers,  Robert 61 

Charette 276,  seq . 

Charrier 239 

Chateaubriand,  on  three  stages 

in  history  of  nobility 14 

Chatelet,  Madame  du,  and  Vol- 
taire      39 

Chesterfield,  foresaw  revolution    10 
Church,  influence  of.  46;  perse- 
cutes   Protestants,  46,   seq.; 
causes    of   Revolution's  ha- 
tred of.  So;  lands  of,  taken 

by  the  State 161 

Clergy,  exempted  from  taxation, 
14,  ij.n.;  privileged  and  un- 
privileged, 42;  gifts  to  crown, 
14;  numbers  of,  43;  grants 
to,  iS;  wealth  and  income 
of,  43;  as  feudal  lords  4S; 
under  the  constitution  01 
1791,  162;  and  the  Vendee,  46; 
liberal  spirit  in,  86;  refuse  to 

take  the  civic  oath 162 

Clubs,  172,  n.  See  also  Jacobin 
Club,  Cordelier  Club,  Feuil- 
lantClub. 

Clun^.  minister 95 

Coalition,   formed,  220;  discord 

in 260 

Colbert 55 

Collot  d'Herbois,  in  Commune. 
208;  on  the  Committee  01 
Public  Safety,  229,  230;  at 
Lyons.  240;  opposed  to  Dan- 
ton,  255;  to  Robespierre,  262; 
sentenced  to  transportation.  272 
Commerce,     improvement     in, 

under  Louis  XVI 96 

Committee  of  General  Security.  231 
Committee  of  Public  Safety,  his- 
tory of,  229,  seq,,  246;  over- 
comes the  Commune,  254; 
and  the  Dantonists,  255;  re- 
organized  .- 267 

Commune,  in  Old  Regime 25 

Commune  of  Paris,  149;  influence 

of 170 

Commune  of  Paris,  the  insurrec- 
tionary, 204,  207,  seq.,  and 
massacres  of  September  ....  212 
Commune  of  Paris,  in  later  part 
of  Revolution,  and  religion, 
247,  249,  252;  struggle  with 
Committee  of  Public  Safety, 
252,  seq. 


PAGE 

"Companies  of  Jehu" 275 

"Companies  of  the  Sun" 275 

Constituent  Assembly,  abolishes 
feudalism,  139,  seq.;  comes  to 
Paris,  iSo;  draws  up  consti- 
tution, 154,  seq.;  order  in,  1S4; 
permanence  of  work  of.  155; 
ecclesiastical  policy,  161, 162; 
difficulties  of,  169;  self-deny- 
ing ordinance  of 183 

Constitution  of  iTgt-^he  process 
of  drawing-Tt  up,  13s,  seq.; 
provisions  9tT^l6.  seq.;  ac- 
cepted by  Louis  XVI 180 

Constitution  of  1793,  227,  seq.; 
suspended,  228;  demanded 
by  the  Jacobins 273 

Constitution  of  1795 277,  seq. 

Convention,  the,  summoned,  207; 
and  of 283 

Corday,  Charlotte,  assassinates 
Marat 240,  n. 

Cordelier  Club 172 

Corvie,  forced  labor  in  public 
works,  abolished  by  Turgot.    92 

Councils  of  State 4 

Council,  Provisional  Executive, 
after  August  10,  1792 207 

"Country  in  Danger" 198 

Court  at  Versailles,  31;  extrava- 
gance of,  33;  morals  of 38 

Couthon,  on  the  Committee  of 
Public  Safety,  229,  230;  at 
Lyons,  210;  supports  Robes- 
pierre, 203;  executed 264 

Curates,  under  Old  Regime,  42; 
join  Third  Estate 120,  122 

Custine 214,  221,  243 

Danton,  and  Cordelier  Club,  172, 
179:  character  of,  185,  seq.; 
and  August  10, 1792, 200,  seq.: 
minister  of  justice,  207;  and 
massacres  of  September. 
210;  in  Convention.  215;  and 
foreign  war.  221;  and  the  ter- 
ror, 242;  favors  moderation, 
2S4;  overthrown  and  exe- 
cuted by  Robespierre  ..  .255-  257 
Dantonists,  after  Thermidor,  266,  272 

Dauphin6,  assembly  of 115 

Debt,  of  France,  history  of  ..9$.  seq. 

Declaration  of  rights 139,  155 

Departments,  founded 157 

Desmoulins,  Camile,  on  July  12, 
1789,  128;  member  of  Cor- 
delier Club,  172;  and  August 
10,  1792,  200;  favors  modera- 
tion, 2S4;  attacked  andguillo- 

fhied 255,  257 

De  Stael,  on  freedom  of  thought 
in  absolutism 70 


Index 


93 


Diamond  necklace,  affair  of 38 

Diderot,  reaction  from,  48;  and 
Encyclopedia,  61,  seq.;    and 

natural  man 63 

Directory,  the 277,  283 

Dumouriez,  made  minister,  195; 
in  the  low  countries,  214;  ae- 
feated  and  deserts 221 

Emigrants.    See  Emigres. 
Emigration,  the  first  or  "joyous"  136 
.    Emigres,  camps  of,  176;  dangers 
\  from,   190-192;    attempt  civil 

war,  276,  seq.;  outlawed 278 

Encyclopedia,  61,  seq.;  destruc- 
tive intiuence  of 61 

•"'"Encyclopedists 62,    63 

England,  affair  of  Nootka  Sound, 

169;  war  with 220 

Etiquette,  changes  in..  .187,  214,  247 
Extravagance  of  court 33 

Family  life,  under  Old  Regime . .  39 

—  ■Famine,  threatened  in  1787 114 

Fauchet,  Girondin 191 

Federation,  Festival  of 167 

Feraud,  killed 274 

—  Feudal  dues,  amount  of 15 

_     Feudalism,  remains  of,  19,  seq.; 

reaction  toward.  22;  and  the 

clei;gy 45 

Feuillant  Club 171 

Finances,  of  Old  Regime,  ch.8; 
at  opening  of  States  General, 

112;  under  Necker 159 

Flesseiles,  murder  of 134 

Fleury,  Joly  de,  minister 102 

Fleury  and  Unigenitus 75,  seq. 

Flogging  in  army 29 

Foulon,  murder  of 134 

Fouquier-Tinville,  and  Revolu- 
tionary Tribunal,  231,  n.;  trial 

and  execution  of 267 

France,  population  of 11,  23,  n. 

Francis  II.  of  Austria 192 

Franklin  in  France 100 

Freedom  of  thought  absent  un- 
der Old  Regime 70 

Freron 242 

Friends  of  the  Constitution,  So- 
ciety of.    See  Jacobin  Club. 
Frog  marshes,  beaten  by  peas- 
ants      20 

Gabelle,  or  salt  tax 17 

Germinal  12th,  revolt  of 273 

"Gilded    Youth,"   the 269,  seq. 

Girondins,  first  appearance  of, 
184;  policx  of,  185,  188;  plan 
war,  189;  form  a  ministry, 
193;  attack  Louis,  197;  in  the 
Convention,     21$;     struggle 


.  .    ..  PAGE 

With  Mountain,  216,  seq.;  and 
death  of  Louis  XVI.,  220;  fall 
of,  221,  seq.;  attempt  civil 
war.  224,  225;  fate  of,  225,  n., 
232;  survivors  reinstated  in 

Convention  » 268 

Government  according  to  Rous- 
seau      68 

Hebert,  and  Cordelier  Club,  172; 
and  Commune,  248;  and 
Feast  of  Reason,  248;  strug- 
gle   with    Robespierre,  253; 

executed 254 

Holland  conquered 271 

Hulin  II 

Hume  and  atheists 48 

Hunting,  privilege  of 20 


Intendants 6 

Intendances 6 

Illuminati,  Society  of 48,    49 

Jacobin  Club,  origin  of,  171;  affili- 
ated clubs,  172;  became  a 
radical  minority.  173;  oppose 
La  Fayette,  176;  and  elec- 
tions to  Legislative  Assem- 
bly,  184;   supremacy  of,  ch. 

15;  suppressed 268 

Tales,  revolt  at 169,  239 

Jansenists,  struggle  with  Jesuits 

74.  seq. 

Jefferson,  on  the  Revolution. iii,  114 

Jemmapes,  battle  of 214 

Jesuits,  struggle  with  Jansenists    74 

Joseph  II.  of  Austria 89 

Jourdan  (of  Avignon) 174 

Jourdan,  General 243 

June  20, 1792,  events  of 195,  seq. 

June  2,  1793 ..222,  seq. 

Julien 238 


La  Fayette,  and  America,  85; 
made  Commandant  of  the 
National  Guard,  135;  on  5th 
and  6th  October,  146.  seq.; 
great  power  of,  149;  called 
Cromwell-Grandison  by  Mir- 
abeau.  153;  refuses  to  unite 
with  Mirabeau,  153,  175;  at 
Festival  of  the  Federation, 
167;  and  the  Jacobin  Club, 
171;  hated  by  Jacobins,  176; 
and  others,  195;  after  20th  of 
June,  197;  deserts 208 

Lamballe,  Madame,  18;  mur- 
dered    211 

Launay,  de,  commander  of  the 
Bastille 131,  seq. 


294 


The  French  Revolution 


PAGE 

Lavater 49 

Law,  idea  of,  according  to  Mon- 
tesquieu       53 

Land  tenure 19 

Legendre 172 

Legislative  Assembly,  meets, 
182;  elections  to,  183;  parties 

in 184 

Le  Mere,  Jansenist  priest 78 

Lettres  de  cachet 8 

Z^f^r  of  the  King 32 

Liancourt.  Duke 135 

Lit  de  justice,  instances  of 80 

Livre,  value  of X4.  n. 

Louis     XIV.,    conception     ot 

France 3 

Louis  XV  ,  and  absolutism,  i,  3, 
4,  10;  and  pacte  de  famine, 

18;  death  of 91 

Louis  XVI.,  accession,  91;  calls 
States  General,  110;  after  fall 
of  Bastile,  135;  declared  to  be 
the  restorer  of  French  liber- 
ty, 140;  goes  to  Paris,  118; 
speech  at  the  Assembly,  106; 
attempts  flight,  176;  petition 
for  his  removal,  179;  com- 
municates with  foreign  pow- 
ers, 190,  193;  declares  war 
with  Austria,  193;  forms  a 
Girondin  ministry,  193;  cour- 
age of,  196:  and  Aug.  10,  202; 
suspended,  203;  trial  and  ex- 
ecution   218,  seq. 

Louis  XVII 241 

Lyons,  terror  at 240 


Malouet 151 

Mandat 201,  seq. 

Mandrin 11 

Mantua,  agreement  of 176 

Marat,  character,  144;  his  part 
in  October  5th  and  6th,  145, 
146;  and  Cordelier  Club.  172; 
opposes  war,  190:  in  Com- 
mune, 208;  and  massacres  of 
September,  209,  seq.;  in  Con- 
vention, 215;  assassinated 
240,  n.;  body  thrown  in  sewer  272 
Marie  Antoinette,  standals  con- 
cerning, 38;  causes  dismissal 
of  Turgot,9o;  growing  hatred 
of,  100;  attempts  to  check  rev- 
olution, 127;  refuses  to  ap- 
preciate La  Fayette  and 
Mirabeau.  143;  insincerity 
of,  169, 193;  treachery  of,  105; 
suggests  the  manifesto  of  the 
Duke  of  Brunswick,  198;  exe- 
cuted    232 

Market  Women,  suppressed —  250 
Marseilles,  men  from 199 


PAGE 
Marseilles,  terror  in,  240;  ''white 

terror"  in 275 

Marseillaise,  the 200 

Massacre    of    the    Champs    de 

Mars 179 

Massacres  of  September 209,  seq. 

Maurepas,  minister 95 

Maximum,  law  of,  245;  modified, 

260;  abandoned 270 

Mazzini  on  the  French  Revolu- 
tion  88,    89 

Menehould,  town  of 177 

Menou,  General 274 

Mesmer 49 

Militia,  under  Old  Regime 26 

Mirabeau  (the  elder),  on  peas- 
ants, 36;  and  his  family 39 

"Mirabeau,  Gabriel  Riquetti, 
Count"  de,  early  life  of,  131, 
152,  seq.:  abandons  his  order, 
14;  in  States  General.  112, 
120;  at  royal  session,  122;  on 
the  work  of  the  Assembly, 
137;  foresees  violence,  149; 
plans  for  benefit  of  the  king, 
149,  167;  prevented  from  be- 
coming minister.  157;  aids 
Necker's  financial  scheme, 
159;  favors  assignats,  160;  ac- 
cepts pension  from  the  court, 
169;  endeavors  to  use  dema- 
gogues, 174;  attacked  by 
Jacobins,  175,  death  of,  170; 
opinion  as  to  Robespierre.. .  187 

Mirabeau,  "Barrel" 151 

Monks 43 

Montesquieu,  on  monarchy,  3; 
sketch  of,  53;  philosophy  of, 
53,  seq.;  works  of,  53,  n.;  influ- 
ence of 77 

Montgoifier 49 

Montmorin,    minister   of  Louis 

XVI.,  176;  killed 211 

Morality  under  Old  Regime  37,  seq. 

Mounier 115,  151 

Mountain,  the,  in  Legislative 
Assembly,  184;  in  Conven- 
tion, 2i5;  struggle  with  Gi- 
rondins,  216;  struggle  with 
Moderates,  269;  defeat  of 
273,  seq. 

Nantes,  Carrier  at 237,  seq. 

Narbonne,    minister    of    Louis 

XVI 190,  192 

National    Assembly,    origin    of, 

ch.  9;  see  especially 120 

National  Guards,  origin  of,  129, 

135;  in  the  provinces,  141;  on 

October  5  and  6,  1789 146 

"Natural   Man"    and    peasants, 

37;  according  to  Diderot,  63; 

according  to  Rousseau.. 64,  seq. 


Index 


295 


PAGE 

Nature,  government   according 

to  53 

Necker,  made  director  of  finance, 

?iS;  financial  policy,  97;  re- 
orms  attempted  by,  98; 
issues  compte  rendu,  99; 
first  resignation,  99;  recalled, 
112;  incompetence  of,  118, 
156;  dismissed,  128;  recalled, 
13^;  hostility  to  Mirabeau, 
156;  attempts  to  float  loans, 

159;  resigns  finally 169 

Nice,  annexed  to  France 214 

Noailles,  Vicomte  de,  proposes 

abolition  of  feudal  privileges  139 
Nobility,  members  and  exemp- 
tions of,  13,  seq.;  exemption 
from  taxes,  14;  poverty  of, 
19,  34;  Lower,  13;  skepticism 
of,  48;  credulity  of,  48,  seq.; 
absentee  landlords,  21;  new, 
23;  habits  of,  40,  n,;  liberal 
spirit  in,  80;  emigration  of..  169 

Nootka  Sound 169 

Notables,  Assembly  of,  called 
by  Calonne,  105:  proceedings 
of,  105,  seq.;  and  States  Gen- 
eral, 107;  significance  of.  107; 
dismissed  by  Brienne,  107; 
recalled 114 

Oath  of  loyalty  to  the  Constitu- 
tion    166 

Oath  of  the  Tennis  Court 121 

October  5th  and  6th,  events  of 
145.  seq. 

Orders,  struggle  between,  119- 
123;  union  of 123 

Orleans,  Duke  of,  118;  influence 
on  the  masses,  130,  135; 
driven  to  England,  149;  exe- 
cuted    232 

D'Ormesson,  minister 104 

Pamphlets,  in  1789 j26 

PalaisRoyal,  excitement  in,  dur- 
ing July,  1789 128 

Paris,  centralization  of  France 
in,  9;  condition  of  inhab- 
itants   126 

Parlement  of  Paris,  and  Louis 
XIV.,  3;  struggle  with  gov- 
ernment over  Unigenitus,  75, 
seq.;  suppressed  by  Mau- 
peon,4,  82;  burns  books,  71; 
reinstated  by  Louis  XVL, 93; 
character    of,    82;    struggle 

with  Brienne 108,  seq. 

Parlements  of  Provinces 82 

Facte  de  famine 18 

Physiocrats 55 

Protestants,  persecution  of 47 

Par  ordre  vs.  fiar  tete 119,  seq. 


_        .  P.AGE 

Parties  in  the  Constituent  As- 
sembly, 150,  seq.;  in  the  Leg- 
islative Assembly,  184;  in  the 

Convention 215 

Pays  d' Election 5,     10 

Paysd'Etat   5,    jo 

Peace  of  Basle 271,  seq. 

Peasants,  taxation  of,  15,  37;  pro- 
prietors of  land,  19;  forbidden 
to  kill  game,  20;  poverty  of, 
34-36;  more  fortunate,  35-36; 
compared  with  those  of  other 
European  countries,  36:  re- 
volts of,  after  the  fall  of  the 

Bastille 135 

Peltier,  and  massacres  of  Sep- 
tember   209 

Persecution 46,  seq.,    78 

Potion, in  Constituent  Assembly, 

151;  mayor  of  Paris.. ..201,  225,  n. 
Petition  for  the  removal  of  Louis 

XVI 179 

Philosophy,  derived  from  Eng- 
landL52;  share  in  producing 
the  Revolution,  72,  81,  seq.: 
influence  of,  83;  wide  spread 

of 89 

Pichegru, 273,  280 

Pilnitz,  declaration  of 189 

Plenary  Court  of  Brienne 109 

Pompadour,  the 10 

Popular  Sovereignty,  before  the 
Revolution,  86;  in  the  Revo- 
lution    188 

Potatoes,  peasants  urged  to  cul- 
tivate them 86 

Prairial  ist,  revolt  of 273,  seq. 

Prairial22d,  Law  of. 2&2 

Privileged  classes 13 

Provinces,  number  and  classifi- 
cation, 5;  abolished 157 

Prussia,  secret  treaty  with  Aus- 
tria, 176;  declaration  of  Pil- 
nitz, 189;  war  with,  191;  peace 

of  Basle 271 

Puysegur 49 


Juesnay,  Fran9ois 

)uiberon,  expedition  to. 


.••55.    56 
.276,  seq. 


Rabaut  St.  Etienne 181 

Reason,  worship  of 248 

Red  flag 179 

Religion,  decay  of 46,  seq. 

Republic,  Montesquieu's  idea  of, 
55;  not  taught  by  Rousseau, 
69;  established  in  France...  215 
Revolution,  the  French,  due  to 
a  combination  of  political 
discontent  and  philosophical 
idealism,  72,  ch,  6;  germ  of 
in  struggle  between  Jansen- 
ists  and  Jesuits, 74;  expected 


296 


The  French  Revolution 


PAGE 

in  1743,  76;  and  in  i753-4.  79 
and  n.:  philosophy  re-en- 
forces discontent,  81,  seq.;  a 
product  of  a  general  spirit, 
89;  recognized  as  existing, 
III,  117;  supposed  to  have 
closed,  180;  end  of,  283;  re- 
sults of 285 

Revolutionary  spirit  universal  in 
eighteenth  century 89 

Revolutionary  Tribunal,  origin 
of,  231,  256,  n.;  changes  in, 
262;  reorganized  267 

(Revolutions  and  revolts 73,  seq. 

Rights,  in  philosophy  of  eight- 
eenth century,  58;  danger- 
ous as  basis  of  a  philosophy.    88 

Robespierre,  sketch  of,  186;  in 
Constituent  Assembly,  151; 
in  Jacobin  Club,  171;  declares 
the  Revolution  ended,  180; 
proposes  self-denying  ordi- 
nance to  Constituent  Assem- 
bly, 183;  not  a  demagogue, 
187;  opposes  war,  190;  op- 
poses insurrectionary  Com- 
mune, 210;  in  Convention, 
215;  attacked  by  Girondins, 
217;  on  the  Committee  of 
Public   Safety,  229,  230;  on 

Eoverty,  243;  struggle  with 
[6bertists,  252,  seq.;  over- 
throws Danton,  255;  his  brief 
dictatorship,  257;  character, 
257, 258;  dictator,  257,  seq .;  his 
ideal  republic.  258;  enemies 
of,  262;  friends  of,  263;  re- 
tires, 263:  attacked,  264;  9 
and  10  Thermidor,  263-265; 
execution  of 265 

Rohan,  Cardinal  de,  and  dia- 
mond necklace,  38;  income, 
44;  and  Cagliostro 49 

Roland,  made  minister  of  Louis 
XVI.,  193;  dismissed,  195;  in 
Council,  207;  and  Conven- 
tion    216 

Roland,  Madame,  approves  bad 
literature,  37;  enthusiasm  for 
Louis  XVL, 93,  n.;  and  Giron- 
dins, 185;  and  loth  of  August, 
199;  execution    of 233 

Rousseau,  foresees  revolution, 
10;  influence  on  family  life, 
39;  theism  of,  48,  261;  sketch 
of,  63,  seq.;  Dijon  essays  of, 
64;  chief  works  of,  65;  influ- 
ence of 66,  188,197,259.  261 

Saint  Just,  opposed  to  Danton- 

ists,  255;  executed 264 

Salons 40 

Salt,  tax  on 17 


PAGE 

Sans-culotte,  meaning  of 187 

Sans-culotte  army,  232,  246;  dis- 
persed, 254:  disbanded 258 

Santerre,  at  Bastille,  131;  on 
June  20,  1792,  196;  and  Au- 
gust 10,  I7Q2 200 

Savoy,  annexed  to  France 214 

September,  massacres  of.. ..208,  seq. 

Servan,  minister 207 

Sidy^s,  on  Third  Estate,  27; 
member  of  Constituent  As- 
sembly   151 

Sinecures 18 

Smugglers,  numerous,  11;  of  salt    17 

Social  compact 68-70 

Socialism,  tendencies  toward, 
160,  170,   244,    246;    reaction 

from 267 

Society  of  the  Friends   of   the 

Constitution.     See    Jacobin 

Club. 

Sorbonne,  the,  on  monarchy....      4 

Spain,  and  England,  169;  secret 

treaty  against   France,  176; 

peace  of  Basle 271 

-States  General,  the  meeting  of 
the  representatives  of  the 
three  Estates,  call  of,  op- 
posed by  Louis  XV.,  82;  pro- 
posed by  Parlement  of  Be- 
sanjon,  103;  proposed  bv  La 
Fayette  in  the  Assembly  of 
Notables,  107;  powers  as 
stated  by  Parlement  of 
Paris,  109;  convoked,  no; 
questions  as  to  membership 
and  election,  113,  seq.;  meth- 
od of  election  to,  115,  n.; 
members  in,  116;  opening  of, 
117;  struggle  over  organiza- 
tion leaa.s  to  the  formation 
of   the    National    Assembly 

119,  seq. 

Sub-delegate  (of  Intendant)...7,    37 

Supreme  Being 259,  261 

Swiss  Guards 200,  seq. 

Switzerland,  secret  treaty  against 
France 176 

Taine,  on  taxes I5 

Talleyrand,  childhood  of,  40;  en- 
thusiasm for  Louis  XVL,  03; 
opinion  of  Necker,  95;  in  the 
Constituent  Assembly,  151; 
at  Festival  of  the  Federation  167 
Tallien,  at  Toulon,  241,  262;  and 

Thermidor 263-265 

Tarascon,  "white  terror"  in....  275 
Taxes,  exemption  from,  14;  chief 
forms  of.  15;  indirect,  16;  un- 
collected in  1789 159 

Tennis  Court,  oath  of,  121,  235;     ^ 
purpose  of 220,  seq. 


Index 


297 


Terror,  the  origin  of,  225;  organi- 
zation of  the  Republic  under, 
22S,  seq.;  results  of,  243;  con- 
structive side  of,  249;  life 
during,  250;    height  of,  257, 

seq.;  undoing  of 265,266-268 

Thermidor,  gth  and  loth  of... 263-265 

Thermidorian  party 266,  seq. 

Third  Estate,  origin  and  divi- 
sions of 23 

Thuriot,  at  Bastille ^ 

Tithes 45 

Toulon,  terror  at 241 

Treasury,  royal 7 

Turgot,  at  Limoges,  7,  57;  reform 
administration  of,  92,  seq.; 
opposition  to,  93;  dismissal 
of 94 

Unigenitus,  the  Bull . .  74  and  Passim 

Vadier 272 

Valmy,  cannonade  of 214 

Varennes,  the    fiight    of    Louis 

XVLto 177 

Vendue,  the,  revolt  of,  208;  war 


PAGE 

and  Terror  in,  236;  amnesty 
offered     to,    268;      royalists 

in 276,  seq. 

Vend^miaire,  revolt  of 279,  seq. 

Veto,    Suspensive 156 

Vetoes,  struggle  over 193,  seq. 

Vergniaud 197,  206,  219 

Vincent,  Jean  Claude 55 

Voltaire,  love  affairs,  39;  and 
Calas,  47;  sketch  of,  58-60; 
and  religion,  60,  6i;  destruc- 
tive influence  of 61 

Walpole,  Horace,  quoted 48 

War  declared 191 

Westermann,  and  August  10, 1792 

201,  243 

"White  Terror" 275 

Workingmen.    See  Artisans. 
Women,  uprising  of,  October  5, 

6,  1789 146 

Young,  Arthur,  and  provincial 
towns,  6;  and  peasant  wo- 
man, 24;  at  Versailles,  33; 
at  Metz 87 


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